The Amazing Hawlucha Man
by Cole Culain
Summary: By day, Alex Alvarez is just another beleaguered grad student. But by night, he and his trusty partner take to the skies to defend Clarus City as the amazing Hawlucha Man!
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Someone screamed as the horde of vacant-eyed civilians advanced down Milton Boulevard. Several carried baseball bats or broken pipes, and they smashed the windows of any storefront they came across, grabbing anything shiny that they could carry. Those that were empty-handed simply pounded on the glass with their fists until the tide of bodies pressed them onward. Many had bloody hands from reaching through the shattered glass, though they seemed oblivious to the pain.

Bringing up the rear of the column was a woman in a hooded sweatshirt with a group of Exeggutor, their leafy fronds glowing faintly in the flickering streetlights. She snapped her fingers at one man whose hands were laden with an assortment of diamond necklaces. The man fell back a few paces, and the woman took his spoils and put them in a large nylon bag she carried over her shoulder.

A man stood on a rooftop some distance down the street, carefully keeping to the shadows. He turned to the pokemon crouching next to him. "Almost there. Just one more block." He peered out and fiddled with a clasp near his armpit. "Okay, we got this. Yeah." The Hawlucha next to him rolled its shoulders and stretched. The man held up his gloved hand and counted down from three. "Ready, go!"

He and his Hawlucha sprinted from the shadows and leapt from the rooftop. The Hawlucha spread his wings to catch an updraft before diving over the mob of stumbling people and angling for the Exeggutor in the back. The man pulled a ripcord on his red and white nylon suit, making the green cloth sails between his arms and torso unfurl and catch the wind. His descent slowed sharply as he caught the same updraft as his partner, and together they shot towards the ground.

Hawlucha struck first, crashing into two of the woman's four Exeggutor before flapping back up into the air and angling his body to come around for a second pass. The man took advantage of the momentary chaos to drop out of the sky. He landed lightly on the balls of his feet and somersaulted to lessen the shock of impact on his joints. When he sprang up, he readjusted his lopsided mask and smirked at the stunned woman. "Whatever you're doing to these people, you need to stop. I don't want this to get ugly."

"Well, because you asked so nicely…" The woman unslung a coiled whip from her shoulder. "Honestly, has that ever worked?"

"No, but I figure it's always worth a shot." The masked man unclipped two stainless steel rods from his belt and twirled them in his hands. "People like you always want to do things the hard way."

She snapped her whip at him, and the masked man dodged to the side. He stayed low to the ground as he ran at her, raising one of his batons to strike her wrist. The woman feinted out of the way and barked an order at one of her stunned Exeggutor. "Give me a hand here!" The grass type ambled forward and its fronds began to glow again, only for Hawlucha to drop out of the sky and attack it with a flurry of kicks and clawing talons. The Exeggutor stumbled back against a wall and toppled over as Hawlucha jumped back up to attack one of its fellows that was approaching the man from behind.

"Thanks buddy," the man said as he and the woman circled. "So what's your gimmick, anyway? This seems a little too heavy handed for the average jewel heist."

"You trying to get me to drop my guard, buddy?"

"Let's call it professional curiosity. You have an alias?"

The woman lashed out with her whip and managed to catch the man's arm. With a yank, she dragged him closer and pulled him to his knees. "You can call me the Soothsayer, if you've got to call me anything." She kicked him in the stomach, making him drop his batons. "And you're going to regret sticking your nose in my business." She kicked one of the rods away and used her free hand to pick up the other one.

"You ought to be honored," the masked man said. "You can tell all of your new friends in the cellblock that your plot was thwarted by none other than the amazing Hawlucha Man!"

"Never heard of you, kid."

"You will. Now, buddy!"

The Hawlucha shrieked and dove straight at the last standing Exeggutor, its body becoming cloaked in a brilliant white light. The flying type crashed into the squat body of the Exeggutor and lifted it off its feet, knocking it through the air and sending it flying towards the Soothsayer. Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Hawlucha Man jerked his arm down and pulled the Soothsayer off balance. As she stumbled, the Exeggutor sailed by over her head and crashed down behind the mob some ways distant. Hawlucha Man jumped to his feet and delivered a punch to the side of the woman's face, making her gasp and drop the whip.

"You son of a bitch!" she screamed, rushing in with his baton. Hawlucha Man grabbed his remaining rod and brought it up just in time to block her telegraphed overhead strike. He delivered another punch to the Soothsayer's abdomen, knocking the wind from her lungs. As she sucked in another breath, she cringed. "You want to call yourself a hero like Blaziken Man, but you'd beat up a girl?"

"In my defense, you do kind of have it coming."

When the Soothsayer came at him again, he grabbed her wrist and contorted his body in such a way as to use the force of her own attack against her. He stopped just short of making the Soothsayer faceplant into the pavement, instead putting her in a headlock and applying pressure to her carotid artery. "Nice and easy now," he muttered in her ear. "Just go to sleep." The Soothsayer passed out, and Hawlucha Man set her down next to a lamp post before handcuffing her to it. Hawlucha landed next to him and cocked his head. Hawlucha Man reached down and scratched the feathers on his partner's head. "All according to plan, more or less."

Hawlucha huffed in what passed as laughter, and they waited for the police to arrive.

It didn't take long, though preventing the mob from continuing down Milton was taking most of the Eleventh Precinct's resources and manpower. Simply taking out the Exeggutor behind the mind control had not been enough to dispel the mind control like Hawlucha Man had hoped. But that wasn't really his department, and the police were better equipped to deal with it than him. Nothing to do now but wait.

Hawlucha Man sat down on a stoop and began massaging a cramp from his leg, and had just about worked through it when a police cruiser turned off one of the narrower side streets and onto the main boulevard. He squinted his eyes against the flashing blue lights as the cruiser pulled up to the curb in front of him. The driver and passenger side doors opened, and Hawlucha Man pulled himself to his feet. "Nice to see you again, Captain. Detective."

Captain Anderson rolled his eyes as he opened the rear door of the cruiser to let his Houndoom out. Detective Reyes inclined his head towards Hawlucha Man. "Nice work. You cleaned this one up faster than I thought."

The Houndoom ambled over to Hawlucha Man, and he knelt down to scratch the police dog's neck. "Hey Oscar. How're you today? Are you being a good boy? Yes you are." Oscar's mouth lolled in a canine grin, and Hawlucha Man patted his head before turning to the detective. "Speedy service with a smile, that's my motto. What's got the captain's feathers ruffled?"

"He lost the betting pool."

"Betting pool?

"He thought it would take you half an hour from contact to bring this one in. I bet fifteen minutes." Reyes smiled wider. "So coffee and donuts are on the captain next week."

Hawlucha Man clapped the detective on his shoulder. "At least I know one person in the Eleventh has some faith in my awesome skills."

Anderson knelt down next to the Soothsayer and pulled back her hood. "Meg Kingsley, like we thought," he muttered.

"She in the system?"

"Dropped out of a biochemistry program a few years ago," Anderson replied. "We've brought her in for a few petty thefts and she made a plea bargain to get off easy. She informed on some of Wrath's boys about some aerosol weapon they wanted her to make." He went to remove her handcuff and chuckled. He undid the cuffs and held them up for Reyes to see. The detective laughed as Hawlucha Man turned a Tamato berry red beneath his hood.

The captain jangled the fuzzy Liepard print cuffs and fought hard to keep a stoic façade. "You going to be wanting these back, Hawlucha Man?"

"Hey, guys, listen, they're not mine, I swear…"

"No, of course they're not," Reyes said.

"Look, there was a girl… and she was kind of into… all of that that. I had to make do with the resources at hand, alright?"

Anderson put the still catatonic Soothsayer in the back of his cruiser and unhooked his own handcuffs from his belt. "Listen, kid, take these. You do good work for us. I'll, uh, keep this one quiet for you." He shook the fuzzy handcuffs. "Unless you really want to hang on to this pair?"

Hawlucha snatched the police handcuffs. "Oh Arceus, no."

Anderson tossed them into a nearby garbage can. "Well, that never happened, as far as I'm concerned. Reyes, on the other hand, might have noticed a thing or two…"

Hawlucha Man turned to the detective. "If you say _anything_ you're dead to me."

Before Reyes could reply, his phone went off. The detective answered and asked a few brusque questions before hanging up. "Sir, we better let the CSU guys handle the rest of clean up here." He showed Anderson a picture on his phone. "The Ronin dropped off a body for us."

Anderson scowled. "Who is it this time?"

"Hard to say, he didn't leave the head or the hands, so no dental and no fingerprints. But the body type matches that rapist with a good lawyer from a couple months back. First responders found a good amount of blood, so we might be able to run some tests at the lab."

"The bastard may have gotten past the judge and the jury, but the executioner caught up with him," Anderson muttered. "All right Reyes, see if you can get anything else while I finish up here." Reyes nodded and walked a little ways down the street, talking into his phone. Anderson looked at the four fainted Exeggutor and ran a hand through his thinning hair. "I'll get some guys from the PPS down here for the Exeggutor, I guess. We've got it from here, kid. Why don't you take off?"

"What about the people under mind control?"

"Seems like Miss Kingsley here used some kind of spores to get people riled up and then hijacked them with her pokemon. With the psychic control gone, my boys are getting the people to calm down. We can handle it." Anderson glanced at Hawlucha Man. "You know the Eleventh exists for a reason, right? You can leave some of our job for us to do. Blaziken Man didn't get where he did overnight."

Hawlucha Man shrugged. "I gotta stay on my toes. Avenbrooke isn't like midtown, captain. We've only got two heroes for all the things that go bump in the night."

"Calling the Ronin a hero may be a bit of a stretch, kid."

"At least he only goes after the bad guys."

"The Ronin went down a bad path. You've still got time to go another way." Anderson put a paternal hand on Hawlucha Man's shoulder. "And I'm really hoping you do, kid. I'm not telling you to get out of the game, because I know you wouldn't listen. Just be careful, all right?"

"It takes a lot to bring Hawlucha Man down."

"I'm sure." Anderson sighed. "I have to go deal with this. You get on home, kid."

Hawlucha Man tapped two fingers to his forehead and gave a lazy salute. "See you the next time things start to bump in the night, cap'n."

"I can count on it, can't I?"

"Damn right."

Anderson held the door to the backseat open for Oscar as Reyes came back up the street. He turned to the captain. "We're pretty sure it's our guy. When we brought him in, he had a tattoo on his left bicep. There's a pretty bad acid burn right where the tattoo ought to be. We're collecting some blood from the site for a DNA test, but it'll probably match up. Still, we better put in an appearance. This one's pretty ugly."

When the cruiser drove off, Hawlucha Man turned to his partner and clicked his tongue. Hawlucha, perched atop a stone Pyroar, looked up from his preening and cocked his head to the side. Hawlucha Man sighed. "You've been smoothing your feathers for ten minutes. I think you're done. Let's get out of here."

Hawlucha jumped down and followed Hawlucha Man down a dark side alley between two old brick apartment buildings. When they were sufficiently out of sight from the street, Hawlucha jumped up and grabbed a fire escape ladder, dragging it down with his body weight. The two of them quickly ran up to the tenement rooftop, sprinted to the edge of the building and jumped out across the gap between buildings. They traversed a block's worth of rooftops this way until they reached a building sufficiently tall enough to glide from.

As they prepared to take flight, Hawlucha Man held up a gloved hand and pointed out across the rooftops to the west where across the river, the skyscrapers of midtown Clarus City rose up against the night sky, their bright lights blotting out the stars. The sweeping towers and illuminated suspension cables of the Concord Bridge and, further down the dark scar of the Umber River, the brutalist bulwark of the Forbes Bridge connected the boroughs of Avenbrooke and Greenpoint respectively to the sprawling metropolis. Far on the other side of the city, the Crown Bridge spanned the West River to Ridgewood and Lenox Hills.

Hawlucha Man rocked back on his heels and sighed. Laid out below his feet, was Avenbrooke, his stomping grounds, his protectorate. His home. "I never get tired of looking at this, buddy. This is what we're fighting for." Hawlucha rolled his eyes. He had heard this speech enough times. "We're doing this to keep all those lights burning. There are a lot of people who want to put them out and do Arceus knows what in the shadows. But we're not going to let them." Hawlucha Man balanced on the edge of the roof, his arms spread wide.

"You just watch!" he shouted towards the shining city. "Avenbrooke is under my protection, and I won't stop until every last son of a bitch knows that if they want to make trouble in _my_ town, they're going to have to deal with the amazing Hawlucha Man!" He jumped out into the open air and pulled the cord on his wingsuit. Hawlucha sprang off the roof just behind him, and together they angled towards another building several streets away. After a series of short, looping flights, they came to rest on the roof of a small apartment building on a narrow street.

Hawlucha Man removed his mask and hood and stuffed them in a small duffel bag near the rooftop access door. He shrugged on a battered leather jacket and stuck a pen behind his ear while he fished out a textbook and two notebooks. He turned to his partner and held out his fist. Hawlucha bumped it with his closed talons. "We did good tonight, Hierro," Hawlucha Man said. "Our first supervillain. To many more!"

His Hawlucha raised his fist in agreement. Hawlucha Man fumbled around in the duffel bag for his key and unlocked the rooftop door. He and Hierro quietly made their way down the stairs, and Hawlucha Man opened the door to a small apartment. Hierro sprang across the room and perched on the back of the only chair and immediately began to preen.

"Alex, is that you?" someone asked from down the hall. "What are you doing out so late?" A woman on the far side of middle age poked her head out her door.

Alex turned to her and grinned sheepishly, showing her the textbook in his hand. "Sorry to disturb you, Ms. Eliot. I was out on the roof finishing up some homework. The fresh air, you know?"

"Just don't go catching a cold," Ms. Eliot chided. "And be careful! The TV was saying that there was a commotion over on Milton."

Alex raised his eyebrow. "Really? Nothing serious, I hope?"

"Well, the police got it under control," she said. "But honestly, the state the city is in nowadays. All those criminals, and the vigilantes are little better."

"I know, it crazy. I should be getting to bed, Ms. Eliot."

"Oh, yes, don't let me keep you."

When she closed her door, Alex let out a breath, grateful she hadn't picked up on his white spandex pants. His landlady generally had his best intentions at heart, but she was terribly nosy. He locked his door, dropped his duffel bag and books and collapsed on the couch. He had meant to wash out the dishes in the sink before falling asleep, but far be it from him to try to move Dimi once the cat had made up his mind to stay somewhere. Besides, he was too exhausted to get up again.

Alex checked that the alarm on his phone was set before relaxing against the couch cushions and closing his eyes. If he didn't get to sleep now, he would probably wind up dozing in one of his lectures tomorrow. Sometimes he envied the other people in his program who only had to worry about finishing their assignments on time and taking good notes in lectures. The double life of a masked vigilante wasn't an easy one, but the Ronin couldn't clean up the streets of Avenbrooke on his own. Or at least, he couldn't without leaving a rather grisly mess.

And so, by day, Alex Alvarez was just another beleaguered engineering grad student, but by night he and Hierro became Hawlucha Man and his daring partner, sworn to keep the streets of Avenbrooke safe.

"Good night, buddy," Alex said. Hierro chirped back, and Alex sank into unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Alex sat in the coffee shop near the university trying to focus on the notes he took two lectures ago, but it seemed that about halfway through he had stopped writing legibly, and now trying to decipher his earlier scribbles was like attempting to translate hieroglyphs from an ancient language. He looked up, trying to find something to distract him for a moment. The TV behind the counter had just changed over to an urgent news broadcast, showing helicopter footage of midtown Clarus City. The camera zoomed in, showing two armored figures exchanging blows on a rooftop. Alex signaled the barista. "Hey, can you turn that up?"

"… responded quickly to the threat," the off-screen reporter was saying. "Damage so far is limited to the Industrial Trust building and first responders are already on the scene." The helicopter camera rapidly panned away from the two armored combatants to show a Slaking bounding up a nearby building and then leaping over to the rooftop. The figure in red and gold armor turned away from his opponent and thrust his palm out towards the rapidly approaching ape. There was a flash as a blast of heat and light shot from the armored man's palm, and the Slaking fell in a heap.

Taking advantage of the red and gold fighter's distraction, the other armored man delivered a sharp uppercut, knocking the man in red and gold off his feet. The man in red armor fired off several more pulses from his hands, but his opponent shrugged them off. Alex and several other customers were all leaning forward in their seats, watching the fight unfold. The man in unadorned armor raised his fist to deliver the final blow, only to be tackled by a red blur. There was a flurry of quick strikes, buying the man in red armor time to stand up.

The Blaziken that had distracted his opponent jumped to the man's side, and they stood back to back, facing down the Slaking and its armored trainer. "Now that's what I'm talking about!" Alex crowed. "Blaziken Man's going to turn this around!"

The two men charged at each other again while Blaziken engaged the Slaking. The news anchor's voice broke in over the live footage. "We are receiving reports from Clarus City police that they believe Blaziken Man's opponent to be notorious criminal Marcus Braun. Police have cordoned off the area to reduce interference in apprehending him."

A murmur rippled through the coffee shop. "Sloth himself," Alex whispered, watching Blaziken Man and the criminal kingpin of Clarus City trade blows. He tried to remember the last time Sloth had taken an active hand in his own operations, and figured it had to have been at least a year ago. Normally if he needed muscle, he would send Pride or Wrath's crew, or if he needed something specifically, Envy or Greed. Whatever he had been after in the Industrial Trust building had to have been important.

Blaziken Man activated the repulsors on his armored legs, shooting up into the air to strafe the ground with shots from his gauntlets. Sloth nimbly jumped out of the way and waited as Blaziken Man descended before leaping at him. The two rolled across the rooftop, and Blaziken Man managed to kick his assailant off. Sloth's Slaking grabbed him out of the air and hurled him at Blaziken Man's partner. The fire type ducked down and came up with a punch that cracked the chest plate of Sloth's armor. The Slaking bellowed and charged at Blaziken, only to be tripped and sent sprawling. Blaziken Man fired a pulse at Sloth's chest, knocking the man down.

Blaziken Man stood over Sloth, his gauntlet glowing with another charged shot, obviously offering him a chance to surrender and come quietly. The two men regarded each other for a long moment, too far from the news helicopter for anyone to hear what they were saying. Outside the frame, a column of fire shot towards Blaziken Man, and the armored hero turned just in time to counter it with a blast from his gauntlet. He used his left hand to steady his shot, and in the momentary distraction, Sloth was back on his feet and delivered a punch to Blaziken Man's beaked helmet, sending him staggering back. Blaziken tried to go to his partner's aid only to become ensnared in the coils of a massive Seviper.

A woman with close-cropped dark hair and wearing black assault gear strode across the rooftop, a Pyroar on her heels. "We have confirmation that the woman we are seeing matches Braun's associate Julia Richelieu," the anchor said.

"Pride," someone in the coffee shop hissed. "This isn't looking good."

The woman pointed, and her Pyroar pounced. Blaziken Man fired on it again, only to be tackled by Sloth's Slaking. Sloth and Pride advanced as Blaziken Man tried to fight a battle on two fronts, but after his drawn-out battle with Sloth, it was clear he was starting to flag. The Slaking managed to get Blaziken Man into a lock as Sloth strode forward, his armored fist drawn back to strike. Before he could, the rooftop was bathed in intense white light. When the camera managed to refocus, Blaziken had been released and Pride's Pyroar was down.

A young woman dressed in white and red stood before Pride, a metal quarterstaff inches from the bridge of Pride's nose. With a quick turn, she brought the butt of the staff around and knocked Pride's knees out from under her. Pride's Seviper lunged at the newcomer, only to stopped with a blast of intensely hot air as a large white moth descended from the sky. The Volcarona kept up its Heat Wave, driving the snake back. The girl hurled another flashbang at Sloth, momentarily blinding him as the optics inside his helmet tried to adjust to the rapidly changing light.

"Yes!" a man two tables down from Alex shouted. "The cavalry's here!"

"Volcarona Mask!" another woman cheered.

Blaziken Man and Volcarona Mask stood back to back as Sloth and Pride charged with their pokemon again. Volcarona kept Pride's pokemon pinned with distance attacks as Blaziken sprinted to his partner's side. Blaziken Man and his pokemon bumped fists just before the armored hero caught Sloth's Slaking with a pulse in the center of its chest, sending the hulking normal type crashing to the ground again, its fur smoldering. Sloth himself targeted Volcarona Mask, whose costume afforded more mobility and flexibility but lacked the defensive plating of Blaziken Man's suit. To her credit, the masked hero nimbly dodged all of Sloth's strikes with a series of pirouettes, flips and acrobatic maneuvers. Using his broad, armored back as a springboard, she launched herself off of Sloth and towards Pride, delivering a kick to the middle of the woman's abdomen as Blaziken Man unleashed a full-power blast in the weakened center of Sloth's armor.

Sloth was sent flying backwards, his armor smoking. He bellowed something to Pride, and the woman tossed a small device at her feet. The capsule exploded into a billowing cloud of thick black smoke, obscuring the view of the rooftop. Volcarona swooped down low and used the beating of its wings to blow the fog away, but by the time it had, Pride and Sloth, along with their pokemon, had vanished. Volcarona Mask jumped to her feet and seemed to quip something to Blaziken Man before climbing onto her pokemon's back and shooting off into the sky, obviously to track down their opponents.

Blaziken Man turned to the news helicopter and held up his hand before he and his Blaziken jumped from the rooftop to a neighboring building. The newscast cut back to the studio, where the anchor shuffled her papers. "We have received word from the CCPD that Blaziken Man and Volcarona Mask are in pursuit of Braun and Richelieu. Due to the attack on the Industrial Trust building, streets will be closed from Third Avenue and Sixty Second Street to Sixth Street and Sixty Fifth Street while the police conduct damage control. Citizens are advised to seek alternate routes."

The crowd in the coffee shop began to disperse when it was clear that the action was over. Alex finished off his coffee and gathered his things so he could get to his next lecture. As he made his way back to campus, it seemed that everyone had seen the news broadcast, and the buzz of conversation was all about Blaziken Man and Volcarona Mask, and the reappearance of Marcus Braun.

Blaziken Man, also known as Jiro Sasaki, had been the first of Clarus City's heroes to start acting publicly to curtail the increasingly bold criminal underworld that had sprung up in the past few years. Sasaki was the president and CEO of Sasaki Industries, and had used his resources and engineering genius to design the Blaziken Man suit. After causing a large public stir with his first few appearances and his success in halting a massive riot started by some of Wrath's anarchists, he went public and revealed that he was the armored figure that had been keeping watch over Clarus City.

After Sasaki, other heroes had started to follow his lead. Volcarona Mask and the Hammer joined Blaziken Man in protecting the city proper, while the Dryad had used her seemingly inexhaustible stable of grass types to maintain order in Lenox Hills across the river, to the point where any disreputable characters fled from anywhere she established an arboretum. The rumor went that Pride had a deep, abiding hatred of the Dryad for driving her out of one of her primary bases of operation.

Those four were the originals, the ones who got the news coverage, the public acclaim, and the right to call themselves heroes.

The newscasters seemed to go back and forth on whether the Cavalier and the Gunslinger in Ridgewood were heroes or vigilantes depending on how successful they had been in the preceding days and how much collateral damage their actions had caused, or at least failed to stop. But people like the Ronin, or Echo and the Phantom in Greenpoint, were never anything better than vigilantes at best, as far as the public was concerned. At worst, they were menaces to society that were little better than the criminals and lunatics they brought to justice.

It certainly didn't help matters that out of all of the outer borough vigilantes, only Hawlucha Man had a good relationship with his borough's police force.

But just being a vigilante wasn't enough for Alex. He wasn't necessarily in the crime fighting business for the glory and prestige that the original four heroes got (though he would admit that the thought of it certainly sweetened the pot). He did it because even though Clarus City was growing into a shining beacon of progress and innovation, its growing light only made the shadows around it deeper and darker. Someone needed to put in the work to keep the city and its civilians safe, and the ability to work a little bit outside the structures of the law allowed Hawlucha Man and the other heroes and vigilantes to do some things the police force simply couldn't.

Alex got to his next lecture and took his usual seat in the back of the lecture hall. After he had set up the 3D rendering software on his laptop, he pulled up the Clarus Herald and the major local TV news website, scanning the headlines for updates on Blaziken Man and Volcarona Mask's pursuit of Sloth and Pride. While he waited for the lecturer to arrive, he saw a small block of text in the Avenbrooke section that talked about the mob on Milton Boulevard and how the terrorist using a potent biological weapon to incite chaos had been stopped by the combined efforts of the Eleventh and "local vigilante Hawlucha Man". He allowed himself a small smile while the professor called for the class's attention at the front. Alex minimized the news sites and turned to the lesson at hand.

Juggling the responsibilities of a student and superhero had proved a difficult task, but Alex had conditioned himself to sleep in short bursts and get by with the minimum number of hours possible. Making sure he could get all his work done on time was the biggest challenge, but he managed. Occasionally though, around especially pressing examinations, the Eleventh was left to patrol the streets of Avenbrooke alone. Though there had yet to be a night where the police couldn't handle the things that went bump on their own, Alex still felt a little guilty.

After putting together his first wingsuit with cast off scraps he gathered in the engineering labs, he had begun using some of his downtime to make improvements on his costume, allowing the sails under his arms to catch greater lift or making a new belt out of a lighter polymer to reduce drag. On his budget, Alex couldn't afford the kind of gear that the Cavalier or the Phantom had, let alone Echo, who relied on a high-end electric guitar and microphone as her crime fighting tools. When he allowed himself to indulge in fantasies, Alex dreamt that after graduating his program, he could work as an engineer at Sasaki Industries, with access to all the technology and resources that would entail, not to mention the generous starting salary the engineering and development department enjoyed.

But that was a long way off, and maybe by then, Hawlucha Man would have the same kind of respect and prestige some of the other heroes had, simply by virtue of his public service alone. That was unlikely, however, as most of the other heroes rose to prestige by facing down a powerful criminal element in a very public fight that was guaranteed to capture the public eye. But due to the underworld politics around Avenbrooke, all the Sins except Envy had learned to give it a wide berth, and the Kuromori Clan rarely had business on his side of the river. The Baron didn't need to call on outside mercenaries for extra muscle when he had plenty on his own payroll. And the Baron's methodology made a drawn-out public fight unlikely.

Alex sighed as he copied down the notation on the projector screen at the front of the room. He was just going to have to hope that the newspapers picked up a few more stories about his work, because he doubted his nemesis was going to give him his ticket to the spotlight.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Alex alighted on the rooftop of one of the warehouses at the end of the docks as the two black town cars pulled up in front of the one across the road. He motioned for Hierro to crouch down, and together they watched several people climb out. A man with muscles that strained the material of his expensive suit got out the passenger side door of the first car and walked to the back door, opening it for middle aged man, similarly dressed in a tailored suit and just the right amount of gray in his dark, close-cropped hair. The door on the other side swung open and a woman in a leather bomber jacket unfolded herself from the backseat. She slung a heavy metal baseball bat over her shoulder and indulged in a wide yawn. She sauntered over to the warehouse door and leaned against the doorframe before lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag.

Three men in slightly cheaper suits holding large black cases piled out of the second car and greeted the middle aged man coldly but courteously. The bodyguard gestured for them to step into the warehouse, but his boss paused for a moment to say something to the smoking woman before following them inside. The woman palmed a pokeball from her belt and tossed with a languid flick of her wrist. A massive Aggron appeared in a flash of light and growled something. The woman shrugged again and said something back. The Aggron lumbered to the other side of the door and hunkered down.

Alex swore under his breath as he adjusted his mask and checked his batons. He hadn't counted on Gwendolyn Culain being here. The owner and sole employee of Aegis Security hired herself and her Aggron out to anyone willing to pay her exorbitant prices. When she had first arrived in Clarus City a few years ago, the various factions had not known what to make of her. The so-called Iron Maiden had no interest in pro bono hero work, nor did she seem to have any interest in carving out a niche in the underworld. A few members of the Clarus City elite had engaged her services as a private security detail when they felt that the city's less desirable elements were targeting them.

Over time, Gwen had developed a reputation for cold professional ruthlessness, quickly and efficiently taking care of any duties her employer set her to. In time, Clarus City's myriad criminal organizations had approached her to contract her services, and Gwen had taken their money and done what was asked of her. Alex had heard that she refused to do anything illegal, for liability reasons, but she had no problem standing outside a meeting between Lust and Keita Kuromori to ensure that no one got in the way of a treaty between the two factions, or ensuring that no one interfered while Gluttony and her thugs roughed up a reluctant "business partner" or terrorized the leaders of trade union.

People who did interfere tended to get hurt, though she generally stopped short of permanently crippling or maiming. Generally.

But now in spite of her reputation, she was in Hawlucha Man's way. He had reason to believe that the Baron was brokering a deal for some seriously dangerous weaponry tonight, and he couldn't in good conscience allow the kingpin of Avenbrooke to get that kind of firepower, terrifying security detail or not. He took a deep breath and stepped back so he could have a running start. He soared out over the edge of the warehouse, Hierro just behind him.

When Gwen saw the two shadows flit by over her head, she glanced up and swore under her breath. "Guess I have to earn that paycheck. Up and at 'em, Maximus."

Hawlucha Man dropped out of the sky and drew his batons. "Things will go a lot easier for you if you step out of the way."

Gwen shouldered her bat. "Yeah, probably. But a contract's a contract." She pursed her lips. "Listen kid, you want to make this easier on all of us and just walk away? I really don't give a damn."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"I figured. Your type always says crap like that. Hard way it is." She hefted the baseball bat and closed the gap between them in an instant. Hawlucha Man barely managed to bring his batons up in time to parry the blow, and even then the shock of the impact reverberated up and down his arms. He tried to counter, but Gwen lazily swung her bat back around and knocked his strike out of the way. Hierro chose that moment to swoop down and attack. Gwen winced as the Hawlucha's kick connected with her left shoulder, but she didn't falter. "Hey blockhead," she called over her shoulder. "Earn your keep, yeah?"

The Aggron lurched to his feet and lowered his spiked head before charging at Hawlucha Man. Alex managed to roll out of the way, and Hierro winged his way back up into the air. Alex whistled to his partner and pointed at the Aggron. Hierro dove again, this time battering the Aggron's face. When the steel type tried to retaliate, Hierro soared back up and out of range.

Gwen and Hawlucha Man traded blows, warily circling around each other. "It's nothing personal, kid," Gwen remarked casually as she swung down with the bat. "I've got nothin' against you. But business has been slow lately and Pirozzi pays well. I got bills to pay, you know." She feinted, and when Hawlucha Man took the bait, she swung the bat across his ribs. Alex fell back with a gasp, clutching his side. Gwen looked a slightly impressed. "I didn't hear a crack. That suit padded?"

"A bit," Alex managed to say. "Reinforced material too."

"Nice. But you're going to have some nasty bruises if we keep this up. Last chance to back off."

"I'll take the risk."

They traded another series of blows, and this time Alex managed to score a hit on the arm Hierro had injured in his first pass. Gwen grimaced muttered a curse. "Come on, Maximus, help me out a bit!"

Maximus turned from his futile struggle to hem in Hawlucha Man. Alex ducked beneath a swing of the Aggron's heavy arms, knowing that he had nothing in his arsenal that could hope to scratch the steel type. Brute force was more Hierro's department. He heard his Hawlucha shriek angrily over Maximus's head, but that quickly turned into a cry of dismay as Maximus launched jagged stones from vents on his back. Alex ran out from beneath the Aggron and sprinted for the door.

Gwen's bat connected with the back of his knee, knocking him to the ground. "You're a persistent bastard, I'll give you that." She sighed. "But look, I've really got to wrap this up. I'll just have Maximus knock you out for a bit and we'll stash you somewhere Pirozzi won't find you. No one has to know you were here tonight. You wake up, you go home, you pop some painkillers and we forget this ever happened, yeah?"

"Can't do that."

"Unfortunately, it ain't an offer, kid. Just letting you know why your head's going to hurt like a bitch for the next few days. Maximus!" The Aggron lumbered towards Alex, but before he got close, Hierro landed in front of his trainer and spread his wings as wide as he could, puffing out his feathers and lunging at Maximus. Instinct took over, and Maximus turned to swat at Hierro with his tail. Hierro's foot connected with Maximus's tail, and he turned to kick into a push, launching himself back at Alex and seizing his trainer before the two of them crashed through the warehouse doors.

Hawlucha Man stood up with a groan and ruffled Hierro's feathers. "Nice move, buddy." He twirled his batons and turned to face Gwen again, but the woman had lit another cigarette and was sitting on Maximus's knee. She stretched out her legs, patted her pokemon's flank, and winked.

"That's all for us, big guy," she said. Gwen waved at Hawlucha Man. "Pirozzi's just paying me to keep everyone out. You got in. As far as I'm concerned, you're out of my jurisdiction. Do whatever you think you gotta do." Hawlucha Man couldn't help smiling and touched two fingers to his forehead in salute. He and Hierro turned towards the dark floor of the warehouse, but Gwen stopped him by raising a hand. "Hey kid. I like the suit."

Alex's grin widened underneath his cowl as he and Hierro ran into the gloom of the warehouse. A small light flickered at the back of the cavernous space, the shadows occasionally shifting as someone moved in front of it. Alex and Hierro slid to a stop just outside the circle of light, though the sound of their footsteps against the concrete floor had long since alerted the Baron and his guests to their presence. The Baron himself sat behind a small, utilitarian desk with several papers spread across it. Two of the men in cheap suits stood off to one side in front of their bulky black cases. The third man sat across from the Baron, poised to sign one of the papers. The Baron's hulking bodyguard stood just behind his employer's shoulder, fingering a pokeball with one hand and the other on his sidearm.

"Might as well give it up," Alex called, making sure his voice was loud enough to echo throughout the warehouse and cover the sound of his and Hierro's light footfalls. "I've got half of the Eleventh outside waiting to take you down."

"Now we both know that isn't true," the Baron said, his voice low and smooth, carrying none of the coarser accents that Avenbrooke was notorious for. "Hiding in the shadows ill becomes you, Hawlucha Man."

"You willing to call my bluff, Baron?"

"Even if you were telling the truth, there is nothing illegal about me brokering shipping contracts slightly outside of normal business hours." Alex gritted his teeth. That was what had made the Baron so notoriously hard to pin down. By day, Carlo Pirozzi was the wealthiest and most influential shipping magnate in Clarus City, but in less reputable circles he was a notorious smuggler and arms dealer. The criminal empire he oversaw was intimately tied to his more legitimate operations, often using his legal shipments to smuggle in illicit materiel or drugs. Because his operations were so effectively hidden in his shipping company, it was difficult for law enforcement to pin anything on him, simply because it was so hard to prove he had actually done anything wrong. He was very careful to make sure that the racketeering, black market sales and occasional execution his subordinates carried out was very far removed from him, or at the very least ensured he had an ironclad alibi. The Baron smirked. "And I highly doubt that Ms. Culain would allow the boys of the Eleventh to surround her without finding some way to alert me of the situation. How she let _you_ slip through, I can't fathom."

"I managed to get out of her jurisdiction."

The Baron sighed. "Mr. Giordano, please remind me in the future to be more fastidious in my wording in Ms. Culain's contracts."

His bodyguard nodded. "Will do. You want me to take care of the kid, boss?"

"Please. I would like to conclude here quickly."

Bruce Giordano tossed out the pokeball he had been toying with, and after the flash of light cleared, he placed a hand on his Blastoise's shell, muttering instructions. Hawlucha Man snapped his fingers, the signal for Hierro to burst from hiding. The Hawlucha leapt at the Blastoise's forehead, in between the sights of both of the jets on the water type's back. Hierro delivered a sharp kick to the turtle's hard skull, making Blastoise lumber back a pace. Giordano drew his pistol and fired off three rounds, but Hierro had already winged back to the cover of darkness, and the shots went wide. Hawlucha Man darted in on Giordano's periphery and brought one of his batons down hard on the the bodyguard's kneecap while he swung up with the other hand to crack Giordano's elbow. Bruce hissed and inadvertently dropped his gun while Hierro distracted his Blastoise. The water type fired off several blasts of pressurized water, but Hawlucha Man's agile partner proved too quick.

Hawlucha Man kicked away Giordano's gun and boxed out the large man's ears, momentarily stunning him. Blastoise changed tactics and fired a blast of icy air from its jets in a wide arc, striking Hierro's left wing. The flying type crashed with a shriek, and Alex waved him back. "Get clear! I've got it from here." Hierro shook his head. The Hawlucha struggled to his feet and charged at Blastoise. He swept his legs low and knocked the heavy water type off balance before somersaulting backwards and disappearing into the shadows before the water type could respond. Blastoise teetered for a second, but could not regain its center of gravity and fell backwards, struggling in vain to right itself.

Hawlucha Man twirled his batons and pointed one at the Baron. "I don't know what you're doing here, but I know it's probably in Avenbrooke's best interests to stop it."

The Baron sighed. "You have been a thorn in my side for quite a while, Hawlucha Man. I'd rather not do this, but you leave me no choice." He reached into the inside pocket of his tailored suit and flicked out a pokeball. A towering Empoleon appeared and regarded Hawlucha Man with a dispassionate sneer. The Baron waved his hand. "Augustus, do what you must. Now, Mr. Nakamura, if you would be so kind to sign here and here."

The Empoleon swung down with his sharp claws, and Alex only barely managed to throw up his baton in time. Augustus huffed out a breath and wrenched the baton from his hands, tossing it out into the dark with a clatter. Hawlucha Man tried to punch the water type, but its rigid feathers made it feel like he was striking a sheet of solid iron. The Empoleon swiped Hawlucha Man off his feet with a backhanded strike from one of its fins, and Alex struggled to rise as Augustus trudged over to finish him off.

A red and white blur tackled the Empoleon, causing the torrent of water Alex was about to be blasted with to go wide, making a crater in the concrete just two feet from his head. Hierro battered the Baron's pokemon with his wings, having chipped off the ice in the shadows. Alex seized the opportunity to jump to his feet and sprint past the two battling pokemon. The man in the cheap suit sitting before the Baron flew up from his chair and ran to his associates. One of the other men had called out his Kadabra, and the three of them vanished in a flash of light, taking the large black cases with them.

The Baron slammed his fist down on his desk as Hawlucha Man ran up. "Well, I hope you're happy," he snapped, his calm and polished demeanor evaporating in an instant. "It took me months to put this meeting together, and now all that's for nothing." He rose from the table and recalled his Empoleon, making Hierro kick through empty air as the pokemon disappeared back into its pokeball. The Baron roused Giordano with the tip of his imported leather shoe, and the bodyguard rolled to his feet with a groan.

"Where do you think you're going?" Hawlucha Man said.

"I have no business here anymore," the Baron replied. "So I'm going home to get some sleep." He waved his hand lazily at the contracts on his desk. "You can bring those to your friends at the Eleventh if you like. Without the last few signatures, they're worthless to me. Of course, they aren't going to find anything to tie them back to my business, but you might have enough to put that coward Nakamura in some hot water with Interpol."

"Bastard deserves it," Giordano grumbled.

The Baron scoffed, his coldly polite persona back in place. "Normally I frown on speaking ill of someone behind their back, but in this instance, I'll allow it." The two of them exited the warehouse, and Alex soon heard their car drive off into the night. It made no sense trying to pursue. There was nothing to charge the Baron with. Alex fetched his baton from where the Empoleon had tossed it, and he and Hierro limped back out into the night air. Gwen Culain had vanished as well, leaving the two of them alone in the shipping yard.

"Ugh." Alex put a hand against his aching ribs and shook his head. "Have I mentioned that I really hate that guy?"


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Alex ran the flannel shirt through his fingers, scowling as he felt the material. It was a nice shirt, good quality, and would probably last him a few years. But he wasn't sure if he was willing to pay out almost double what he normally paid for his clothes. After a moment of reflection, he sighed and put the shirt back. It wasn't worth it.

Blaziken Man probably never had to look at price tags.

He poked around the clearance section of the department store for a few minutes longer but found nothing that really caught his eye. Alex gave up and left, heading back out into the shopping district towards the next stop. He needed some new clothes, but it was hard to find things in his price range. Before he had become Hawlucha Man, money had been tight enough, but now that most of his extra cash went to tweaks and improvements on the suit, he had even less money to spread around. He turned the corner onto the main boulevard just in time to see four black SUVs careen after an armored truck. The truck skidded to a halt in front of First Clarus Bank, screeching up onto the curb. Guards spilled out from the bank doors to form a perimeter around the truck.

The SUVs slowed down as they cruised closer, and the doors all flung open at once. From each vehicle, three men dropped and rolled across the pavement as the SUVs quickly reversed and drove off. The twelve men all wore black facemasks and advanced on the bank guards. The guards drew their tasers, but before they could use them, a man in black and white motley stepped from the crowd and stood in front of the robbers. The charged wires from the tasers shot out and struck the air in front of him, colliding with the invisible wall the mime conjured there.

Alex swore under his breath. "This was supposed to be my day off!"

He ducked into a nearby coffee shop and ran into the bathroom, digging the Hawlucha Man costume from his backpack as soon as the door swung shut behind him. Alex could faintly hear the employee behind the counter shouting that the bathrooms were for paying customers only, but he paid it no mind. He quickly zipped himself into the wingsuit and called out Hierro from his pokeball. "No rest for the weary, partner. We've got a heist to stop."

The two of them charged out of the bathroom and into the now considerably more crowded coffee shop. People from the streets had fled to the shelter of the nearby stores to get out of the crossfire of the bank robbers and the recently arrived police. As Alex shoved his way through the press to the door, a man grabbed his arm. "What are you doing, kid?"

"My job."

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

"I'm Hawlucha Man. And I'm going to put an end to this."

"Why not just leave it to the cops?"

"Blaziken Man wouldn't stand on the sidelines, and I'm not going to either." Alex shook free of the man's grasp and stepped out into the street. The police had arrived and had surrounded the armored transport. Several Koffing drifted above the transport, and an Ursaring stood warily by the bank's doors. One of the police cars was a mangled wreck after having a civilian car thrown at its hood. The police had their guns drawn and stood behind riot shields, but no one made a move. The man dressed in black and white motley stood in front of the armored truck, and the air before him seemed to ripple and shimmer.

When Alex ran up, the captain turned and shook his head. "Oh no. I'm not dealing with any costumed freaks today. I got enough on my plate."

Alex glowered at him. "If Blaziken Man dropped out of the sky right now, would you tell him to piss off?"

"Kid, you sure as hell aren't Blaziken Man."

"Maybe not, but Hawlucha Man is all you've got right now. Radio Captain Anderson at the Eleventh, all right? He'll attest to my record. I'm here to help."

"I don't have time to play dress up. It's bad enough Greed and her boys took hostages, but I've got that motormouth over there to deal with too. Hasn't anyone ever told him mimes aren't supposed to talk?"

"I know. I've dealt with him before. For Arceus's sake, radio Captain Anderson."

The captain scowled but had one of his men comply. The man came back a moment later and nodded. "Hawlucha Man checks out. Might be best to let him help, captain."

The captain folded his arms. "All right. You say you know how to handle the esper. Take care of the psychic freak and let us handle the hostages. Just make sure he doesn't drop anything on us."

"Walls are all he can do," Hawlucha Man said as he stepped through the police line. He approached the man in black and white. "Pierre? Pierre, it's me. I need to know what you're doing here. You're supposed to be in St. Ambrosius's."

The man's face lit up. "Hawlucha Man! Ms. Petrovna and her friends got me out! And look, they found Mimsy too!" He pointed at the other side of the truck where a Mr. Mime wove together a similar shining barrier to the one in front of Pierre.

"I see that. Pierre, can you drop the wall?"

The mime shook his head. "I'm not supposed to. Ms. Petrovna said."

"I just want to talk with you. You can put it up again as soon as I come through. You know I don't like talking to you this way."

Pierre sighed and waved his hands, and the air in front of him returned to normal. Alex took three paces forward and the wall reappeared behind him. Alex took a deep breath. "Listen, Pierre. These people are not your friends. They're just using you to get what they want."

The smile disappeared from the mime's face. "I know."

Alex nearly took a step back. He hadn't expected that. In the past, Pierre had gleefully gone along with any of the Sins when they reached out to him, thinking that they would be his friends and if he helped them. It had been a simple matter of convincing him that the Sins were only using him for his powers to get him to stand down and come quietly. Now he would need a different approach.

"If you know they're using you, why are you doing this?"

"Even if they aren't my friends, they helped me. They got Mimsy back. If I don't help them, I have to go back to the hospital."

"The hospital is only trying to help you."

"They took Mimsy away from me!"

"It wasn't safe for you to be around Mimsy." Alex spread his hands, showing that he meant no harm. "But maybe things can be different this time. If you agree to come with me and go back to St. Ambrosius, I'll see if I can get them to let Mimsy stay with you. Arceus as my witness, I'll do everything I can."

"You promise?"

"I promise. Cross my heart. But you've got to bring the wall down and let the police in, or they won't listen to me. Okay?" Alex signaled to the police to lower their weapons and prepare to move in.

Before Pierre could respond, a black shape passed overhead. "Have no fear, citizens!" someone boomed. "Captain Unova is here!"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Alex muttered. "It just _had_ to be this guy."

A man dressed in blue and white dropped out of the sky just inside of Pierre's invisible wall. As he did so, a Braviary swooped down to claw at Mimsy. Pierre whirled on Hawlucha Man. "You tricked me! I thought you were my friend, but you _tricked_ me!" He threw up another wall, knocking Alex back. Mimsy fired a psychic pulse at the Braviary, making it climb back up into the sky. The commotion drew the attention of the robbers in the bank, and a rattle of gunfire came from two of the windows. The police fired back, and Alex ducked for cover behind the armored truck.

Captain Unova turned the corner of the transport and tapped two fingers to his helmet. "Didn't see you there, friend. What say the two of us handle this together? I'm sure we can wrap it up in no time!"

"You absolute _moron_ ," Alex snapped. "I had everything under control. Pierre was about to stand down. And then you show up and ruin _everything_!"

Beneath his helmet, Captain Unova cocked an eyebrow. "Well then, I suppose we'll just have to improvise a bit." He glanced around the side of the transport. "You flank left, and I'll go right. Our partners can come in high, and that should be enough to distract the clown. I'll have my Braviary take down the Ursaring. Then I'll storm the bank doors."

Alex gritted his teeth. Captain Unova's plan made a fair amount of sense, but he didn't have to like it. It was just his luck that out of all the heroes in Clarus City, he had to team up with this guy. Of course, forcing his way into already-escalated situations was the only way Captain Unova ever teamed up with other heroes. "All right," Alex finally said. "But leave the Ursaring to Hawlucha. Braviary would be better off rounding up those Koffing." He jerked his chin at an Ariados scuttling across a web slung between two of the ornamental columns on the bank's façade. "And I don't like the look of that spider. Best to take that out before it becomes a problem."

"If you say so, partner. On my mark." Captain Unova held up his hand, counted down from three, and nodded. He and Alex darted out from behind the transport and tore off in two separate directions. Alex stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled to Hierro. When he had his partner's attention, he gestured towards the large Ursaring before launching himself off a pile of debris and spreading the wings of his suit. Pierre had not managed to get a secondary barrier up before Alex slammed into his chest feet-first, knocking the mime to the ground.

When Pierre had struggled halfway to his feet, Alex shook his head. "I'm really sorry about this." He grabbed the mime in a lock and spun him around. He applied pressure to Pierre's neck and felt him go limp as the esper slipped into unconsciousness. Before he blacked out, Pierre managed to gasp out, "Don't let them take Mimsy. You promised."

Alex lowered Pierre's body, and almost immediately the invisible barrier the mime had conjured flickered and vanished. Hawlucha Man turned and waved the police force forward. The riot squad moved in to surround Greed's men guarding the outside of the bank.

Hierro clashed with Ursaring, claws and talons flashing as the two struggled to gain the upper hand. Captain Unova's Braviary screamed as it flew circles around the Koffing, finally selecting a target and using its talons to knock the poison type into the Ariados's web, knocking the spider to the ground. The police force's Growlithe soon had the insect surrounded, keeping it pinned down. Captain Unova wove through the chaos with his signature kickboxing moves. When one of Greed's grunts charged at him with a baseball bat, the man casually dodged to the right, brought his knee up into the man's chest and then caught him with an uppercut, knocking him flat.

For all that Captain Unova got on his nerves, Alex had to admit he knew how to get the job done.

As he ran to back up Hierro, the doors blew off the bank. Alex ducked behind an overturned car as the heavy metal slabs flew across the street and crashed into the storefronts on the opposite side. Smoke billowed from the gaping hole in the wall, and slowly several figures resolved themselves from the murk.

"What did I say, Yevgeny?" a booming, accented voice said. "Wrath may be a crazy bastard, but his explosives are top of the line. In that, at least, I trust him as far as I can throw him!" Alex peeked over the top of the car and saw a giant of a woman with half of her hair shorn off, and the bare part of her scalp heavily tattooed.

Anya Petrovna, known to many as Greed, flexed one heavily muscled bicep. From what Alex had heard, trusting someone as far as she could throw them was high praise from Greed, especially if the rumor she had once hurled Gluttony out of a wrestling ring was to be believed. Greed looked at the riot squad dispassionately snapped her fingers. "Blow them away, yeah?" Her men raised their guns, but before they could fire, a brilliant flash of light filled the air. There was a great rush of wind, and when the light cleared, a woman cloaked in bright orange and white stood atop the armored truck, a large Volcarona hovering behind her on iridescent wings.

"All right!" she shouted. "Amateur hour is over!" She extended a telescoping metal staff and spun it over her head. "Volcarona Mask is here to kick! Your! Ass!"

Greed snapped her fingers at her Ursaring. "Oy, Stepa, on your feet. We've got a real fight now." She raised her gun and laughed. "Bring it on, bitch! I will swat you like the tiny insect you are!"

Volcarona Mask leapt from the top of the truck as her pokemon partner began to superheat the air. Greed's men fired into the crowd, and Alex was forced to run for cover. His suit was reinforced to prevent blunt trauma from crippling him, but there was no way it could stop a machine gun salvo. He was way out of his depth here. Pierre was neutralized, and now that Volcarona Mask had shown up, it was clear that the situation had escalated beyond what an upstart from Avenbrooke could handle.

Though if he was honest with himself, the police in riot gear should have been his first clue that he was going to be punching above his weight class.

Bullets pinged against the overturned car Alex was hiding behind, and he tried to make himself as small as possible. He cursed under his breath. Alex told himself that Blaziken Man didn't cower when the situation got too hot. Then again, Blaziken Man didn't have to worry about trivial things like bullets. Alex waited for the shooting to move away from him and peered around the car.

Volcarona Mask pirouetted through the chaos, hurling flashbangs and sonic grenades to stun her foes before moving in to dispatch them with her metal quarterstaff, all the while working her way to Greed. Her Volcarona spiraled through the air above, deftly dodging bullets and launching streams of fire at the bank robbers below. The police had rallied around Volcarona Mask, providing cover and support. Captain Unova traded blows with one of Greed's lieutenants, shouting encouragement to his allies while the police shouted back at him to stay out of the way.

Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw a slim figure slinking out from behind one of the bank columns, carrying a large metal briefcase. The figure moved from cover to cover, obviously not keen to get caught up in the firefight.

Alex tracked the woman (he was pretty sure it was a woman) as she ran and decided that he was better suited to bringing her in than facing down Greed's guns. He whistled to Hierro and sprinted off after the woman in black. Once he and his partner were clear of the firefight, he hung back just enough to make it difficult for the woman to see him tailing her. He chased her down several blind alleyways, and was surprised at how little noise her footfalls made. After several minutes of running, he heard a clang and the noise of feet on a fire escape. He and Hierro immediately found a fire escape of their own and ascended to the roof.

The woman in black vaulted across the low rooftops of the lofts outside the shopping district, and Hawlucha Man glided after her, soaring from rooftop to rooftop with his wingsuit. He could no longer hide his pursuit, and when the woman spotted him, she dropped back down into the maze of back alleys and blind corners between the buildings. Alex cursed under his breath and followed after her.

Her footfalls were not nearly so silent now, and he tracked her with ease. "Leave me alone!" she shouted over her shoulder. "Take a hint, why don't you? No one likes a man who doesn't know when to quit!"

"What were you doing at the bank?" Alex shouted back. "What's in the case?"

"None of your damn business!" He heard her muttering increasingly frantic curses as she turned down a blind corner. "Oh damn it!" Alex turned and found the woman in black standing in a dead end with sheer walls on three sides. She whirled on him and took a deep breath. "I don't like getting my hands dirty like this, but you've left me no other choice."

Alex held up his hands. "Easy now. If you come quietly, maybe you can work out some kind of deal. Give us information on your friends back there and maybe the police can help you out."

"Turn on the Sins? Yeah right. I'll take my chances with you."

A purple blur darted out of the shadows on Alex's right and instinct kicked in. He lashed out with a chop and knocked the Purrloin out of the air as Hierro pounced, pinning the feline beneath one talon. Alex unclipped his batons from his belt and spun them. He glanced down at the Purrloin and then back at the woman, who now seemed a little less enthusiastic about the prospect of a fight. "Not a bad trick, but it's a pretty basic one." He sighed. "Look, I just want a few answers. What's in the case? What were you doing at the bank?"

The woman backed up against the wall and took a shaky breath. "I don't know much. I'm just a freelancer, okay? Like the mime guy."

"A freelance criminal?"

"You're a freelance superhero, buddy. You don't get to give me that look." She tossed her head back. "Besides, I'm a damn good freelance criminal. There's no vault in the world the Shadow can't crack."

"The Shadow? Never heard of you."

"Well yeah, you wouldn't. That's kind of the point." At Alex's look, the woman sighed again. "Listen, all I know is Greed wanted me to open a vault. Straightforward job, good payoff, whatever. I've cracked First Clarus before, it's a piece of cake. I was thinking I'd just go in solo, take what she wanted, skim my cut off the top and call it a day. But no, Greed wants to make it a whole damn thing, because apparently it's bring the whole fucking family to work day. So that goes all tits up, and here we are."

"And in the case?"

"My cut." The Shadow shrugged. "Listen buddy, you know how banks work? This money is insured, all right? The rich assholes I'm taking it from are going to get it all back. Closest damn thing I can think of to a victimless crime. Hey, I'll tell you what." She slowly knelt down next to the case and popped the clasps. She reached in and held up a large stack of bills. "This right here is yours if you want it. All you gotta do is step aside and have your bird give me back my cat."

Alex wasn't sure exactly how much money the Shadow was offering him, but it seemed like a lot. Definitely enough to cover his expenses for several months. Several months of decent food and actually turning on the heat. Blaziken Man never had to make a call like this.

"Sorry. Can't let you do that," Alex said. It was times like this that he hated having to be one of the good guys.

"Well aren't you a fucking paragon of virtue," the Shadow muttered before snapping the case shut again. "Guess we're doing this the hard way, huh?" She balled her fists and darted forward.

"Lady, you're going to regret the day you crossed the amazing Hawlucha Man."

"Hawlucha Man? Never heard of you."

Hierro danced nimbly back from the Shadow as she approached, keeping the Purrloin pinned in his claw. Alex moved in to attack, but the Shadow jumped out of his reach. She tried to strike, but Alex dodged her punches. She might have been as skilled a cat burglar as she claimed, but she hadn't trained to fight like Alex and Hierro had. Alex prepared to bring the fight to a swift conclusion when he was overcome with a sudden chill.

"About damn time you showed up," the Shadow snapped.

Alex felt an icy hand on his shoulder and heard something breathing in his ear. Something wet tracked up the side of his face, and Alex quickly felt himself becoming numb. He fell to his knees and collapsed on the ground, and Hierro shrieked at his unseen assailant. A cloud of purple mist resolved itself next to the flying type, and the Shadow's Haunter licked the Hawlucha too. Hierro's grip on the Purrloin slackened as he collapsed, and the Purrloin scampered back to its trainer.

The Shadow collected her case and stepped over Alex's prone form. "Well, that was fun. See you around… Hawlucha Man." She laughed and strode off into the lengthening evening shadows with her pokemon.

Alex and Hierro were left to lie in the alley until their paralysis wore off. When Alex was once again able to move his lips, he managed to growl just one sentence.

"Blaziken Man doesn't have to put up with this shit."


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

The diamond cufflinks were a silly indulgence, he knew. He would have been far better off with a more practical button-sleeve, but he had always believed that appearances counted for far more than people gave credit to. He reached up and fixed the white mask that obscured his eyes and nose before tapping his gilded cane against the ground twice. The humming noise behind him grew in intensity as the looming shape of his partner bled out of the shadows and took on solid form.

The villains in Greenpoint knew to flee to their wretched dens when the Phantom walked the streets.

The young man brushed a speck of nonexistent dust from his silk jacket and leaned casually on his cane as his partner analyzed various radio signals. With a deep bass hum, he alerted the Phantom that he had found something. "Well then, lead on." His partner's broad hands clamped down on the Phantom's shoulders, and he felt himself drawn into his partner's pliant body. It was followed by the lurching sensation and acute vertigo that always accompanied their travel in this manner, and fortunately it was over as abruptly as it began.

When his partner released him, the Phantom found himself in a dark, dead-end alley with an alarm ringing some ways distant. He stepped out onto the main street and found himself a block from the Clarus Geological Society. "Envy's stooges, I'll wager," he muttered. "How predictable." He gestured for his partner to hang back and strode up the baroque façade of the Geological Society and leaned against one of the Doric columns. He withdrew a watch from the pocket of his waistcoat and nodded. "If they're after what I think they're after, and the alarm started then…" A window above him exploded outward in a cascade of glass, and several forms rappelled down. The Phantom snapped his watch closed. "Right on schedule." He stepped out from the shadows of the pillar and inclined his head to the burglars. "Lovely night for a stroll, gentlemen."

The three would-be robbers whirled on him, and the leader's Sneasel and Sabeleye prepared to pounce. "Who the hell are you, fancypants?" the second bandit snapped. His Hypno raised its pendulum and the third robber's Ariados clicked its mandibles together.

"I am the man who is about to make things rather unpleasant for you if you don't return the Harcourt Diamond to me immediately."

"How did you know that we—?" the third robber asked before being cut off by the first one with an impatient wave of his hand.

"Doesn't matter how he knows. Just get rid of him!" He clicked his tongue, and his two dark types charged. The Phantom twirled his cane and swatted the Sneasel out of the air. With his free hand, he snapped his fingers, and a glowing purple orb struck the Sabeleye, knocking the unfortunate creature flat. His partner's humming filled the air as the Dusknoir loomed up behind the Phantom.

The second robber drew his pistol. "We still have numbers on this guy. C-Come on!"

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," the Phantom quipped. He tapped his cane against the ground, and ghostly flames appeared in the air around the burglars. The pinpricks of light quickly resolved themselves into a Chandelure and two Lampent, even as the shadows the three ghost types cast began to writhe. A cloud of Ghastly and Haunter surged out of the darkness, quickly surrounding the three terrified men. The Ariados attempted to scurry away only to be singed by a gout of flame from one of the Lampent.

"Y-You're crazy!" the third robber said.

"You'll find I'm quite stable. Methodical, even," the Phantom said as he strode through the cloud of ghosts. "Though you'll have to forgive me for indulging a bit in theatrics. It's just that the diamond I am reasonably certain you have stolen has a certain personal significance to me, and I would like to see it returned to its rightful place."

The second robber fished something out of his pocket and tossed it to the Phantom. "If you want it so bad, then have it. Arceus man, just let us go. We were only following the boss's orders. We never wanted to hurt anybody!"

The Phantom caught the bag out of the air and weighed it in his palm. "I wish I could believe you, but the fact remains that you are guilty of breaking and entering the Geological Society, and I cannot let you escape without punish—"

The Phantom was cut off by an explosion several streets away.

"Well gentlemen, it seems this is your lucky night. However, I can't allow ruffians like you to menace Greenpoint without consequences, so…" He clapped his hands and most of his ghosts dispersed, vanishing back into the shadows they had sprung from. "Cornelius, Erasmus, ensure these ruffians stay put, and Brahms, see to it that the gentlemen of the Eighth are informed of their new wards." A solitary Ghastly shot off into the night while two Haunter descended on the terrified robbers and quickly immobilized them. When they had been dealt with, the Phantom turned on his heel to face his Dusknoir. The opera cape he wore flared out around his legs in a way he thought was suitably impressive and dramatic. "Now then Gregor, shall we?"

The Dusknoir enveloped him again, and when the Phantom emerged from the disorienting darkness, he found himself several streets over. Someone crowed with raucous laughter and gunned a motorcycle engine. A group of young men on motor bikes tore around a corner, whooping and shouting. They carried bottles filled with oil and topped with burning rags. They hurled the fiery cocktails indiscriminately through windows, reveling in the chaos they created.

"Wrath," the Phantom spat. Of all of Clarus City's Sins, Wrath was the one he detested most. The anarchist and his gang sowed strife everywhere they went, and Sloth made no effort to rein them in until their antics threatened his own interests. As far as the Phantom was concerned, Wrath was nothing more than a rabid animal with a long leash, and rabid animals needed to be put down.

This time, Wrath's minions had targeted the old City Hall, blowing out the southwestern wing of the stately, centuries-old building. The Phantom had no idea what their aim was, if they even had one, but a desecration of an illustrious symbol of Greenpoint's past couldn't go unpunished. However, even with his army of ghosts, he didn't fancy his odds against a band of bloodthirsty anarchists. Still, someone had to slow them down until the police could catch up to them. The Phantom spread his arms wide and beckoned to the shadows. "Chase them down." Clouds of his ghost types poured from the darkness and took the air, shrieking and howling as they tore off after the motorcycles. "Titus," the Phantom said. "To me."

A truly massive Haunter swooped down and wrapped one of the Phantom's arms in each ghostly claw before rising back up into the air again. As he was buoyed aloft by Titus, the Phantom saw Gregor blur back into the shadows below. Titus soared above the wide boulevard, his breath icy on the back of the Phantom's neck. Gregor's shadow transportation was undoubtedly useful, but when giving pursuit, it was better to fly, especially when the quarry was driving as erratically as the anarchists.

When Titus caught up to his ghostly brethren, the Phantom allowed himself a brief smirk of satisfaction at the sheer panic his ghosts had instilled. The fleeing anarchists were firing madly at the ghost types, but their bullets mostly passed through their gaseous bodies. Those that had more solid corporeal forms knew well enough to hold back. Titus put on a burst of speed to get out ahead of the motorcycles and lightly deposited the Phantom on the street in front of them. Gregor was instantly at his side, broadcasting his spectral hum.

When the lead motorcyclist showed no signs of slowing down as he approached, Gregor fired a shadowy orb from the palm of his left hand. It struck the front wheel of the bike and launched the driver through the air. The rest of his ghosts descended on the cyclists in a screaming mass, knocking them from their bikes. When the ghost army rose back up into the air, the Phantom swept forward. "I see you're not laughing anymore. Good. I assume I have your attention?"

One of the anarchists stalked towards him, flicking open a switchblade. "I'm going to gut you, nice and slow. Punks like you ought to know better than to mess with Wrath!"

The Phantom sidestepped the first clearly telegraphed blow. "Am I speaking to the man himself?"

"The one and only!" He angrily hurled a pokeball at his feet, and a red and black form burst from the capsule. The Incineroar pounced at the Phantom, only to receive Gregor's fist in its gut. The Phantom quickly drew the concealed blade from his cane and spun to meet Wrath's next attack. The anarchist's hair was in wild disarray, and his faded jacket was more patches than leather. It was, in the Phantom's studied opinion, an entirely tacky and clichéd look.

His ghosts kept Wrath's minions pinned down even as they too summoned their pokemon allies. Gregor and the Incineroar battled back and forth, seemingly in a stalemate. Both Wrath and his pokemon shared an erratic, hard-to-predict fighting style that kept Gregor and the Phantom on the defensive, but it was rough, unschooled and lent itself to over-commitment, making it easy to take advantage of.

"I've been waiting a long time for this," the Phantom snarled as he and Wrath traded blows. "I'm going to put you down, once and for all."

Wrath scoffed as he parried the Phantom's strike and drove a knee into the young man's chest. "You know how many times I've heard that tune? Anyone who stands up to Wrath gets beaten down."

"I'm not just anyone." The Phantom feinted and managed to drive the point of his blade into Wrath's gut, drawing a gout of blood. He grinned and pressed his assault even as Wrath howled in pain and rage.

"I'll make you pay for that, you little punk! _No one_ stands up to Wrath!"

The Phantom struck again, this time drawing a scratch along Wrath's cheek. "When you only pick on those weaker than you, it has a way of inflating your own self-importance. And now, all your debts are coming due." Though Wrath was unquestionably the stronger of the two, the Phantom's cane-sword had a far longer reach, and he was pressing his advantage. "I'm going to make you pay in blood for everything you've taken from Clarus City. For everything you've taken from _me_!"

"Bold talk," Wrath hissed. "But can you back it up, kid?" The Phantom drove his blade into the meat of Wrath's thigh, making the anarchist stagger.

"All that and more, you pathetic bottom feeder." He flicked the blood from his blade and engaged again. The Phantom caught Wrath's knife on the hilt of his blade and held him there, their faces mere inches from each other. "For five years, I've been waiting for a shot at you. Five years ago, you took my parents from me."

Wrath managed to contort his grimace of pain into a smirk. "I've killed a lot of parents. You're going to have to be a bit more specific."

The Phantom let his fury boil over, and he rained a series of blows on Wrath, driving the man back. Wrath stumbled over a loose paving stone, and the Phantom saw his opportunity to knock the knife from the anarchist's hand. It clattered away across the ground, and the Phantom forced Wrath to his knees. He raised his blade, knowing exactly what he had to do.

The Phantom, like almost every other hero in Clarus City, adhered to a strict, unspoken code that they were not to kill their adversaries, no matter how heinous the crime. They were always to bring them to justice, and allow the legal system to do its work. Occasionally, the Gunslinger or the Hammer or even Blaziken Man would go too far, but those deaths was always explicitly accidental. As far as the Phantom knew, only the Ronin openly flaunted the code, and the Ronin was hardly a hero anyway.

But now that he had Wrath before him, utterly within his power, he understood why the Ronin did what he did. Some men would only find justice in death, and if he was chosen by fate to become the instrument that delivered it, then so be it. After everything Wrath had done, the sentence was clear. The Phantom would be judge, jury, and executioner. No one would mourn Wrath anyway.

Just as he was about to bring the blade down on Wrath's throat, a triumphant howl split the air, shattering the Phantom's concentration. The Incineroar managed to land a solid hit on Gregor, making the Dusknoir's usual hum change into a protracted moan. At that moment, Wrath snarled a nearly unintelligible curse and drew a pistol from beneath his jacket. At this range, there would be no way for the Phantom to avoid a direct hit.

Before Wrath could pull the trigger, the Phantom heard a high-pitched shriek, and then Wrath was sprawled on the ground several feet away, seemingly hit by an invisible force. Another shriek, and the Incineroar was likewise sent tumbling away. The Phantom's eyes widened as he realized what had happened, and an instant later Gregor had blurred and reappeared at his trainer's side, his humming growing louder in preparation of what was about to happen next.

The Phantom's ghostly legion scattered as a loud reverberating chord shook every window up and down the street. The anarchists clapped their hands over their ears as the auditory assault continued. The chords were loud enough to almost have a physical force, keeping Wrath and his band of terrorists pinned down beneath a wall of pure sound. The Phantom wasn't sure entirely how, but the frequency Gregor broadcasted at seemed to give him some kind of immunity, which certainly made collaboration with the other Greenpoint hero a great deal easier.

He wasn't sure where Echo and her pokemon allies were exactly, but they had to be very close by to have this kind of effect. He owed her one. _Another_ one.

The anarchists writhed as Echo continued to play from her concealed location, and soon the Phantom saw the flashing red and blue lights of police sirens. The overpowering sound died out when the officers arrived, and Gregor subsided to his usual quiet hum. The police quickly apprehended the prone anarchists and began dragging them to their feet and into the waiting transport.

Captain Ito of the Sixth Precinct nodded to the Phantom when she arrived. "I got the present you left my boys at the Geological Society," she grumbled. "You're like my wife's Glameow, you know. Always leaving little 'presents' on the doorstep."

"Just doing my part," the Phantom replied. Though he was still shaken from his bout with Wrath, he was doing his best not to show it. A hero was always composed, not a hair out of place. He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and drew out the small black bag he had taken from the robbers. He tipped the contents into his palm and held it up to the light. The fist-sized, multifaceted blue diamond glittered in the street lights. He held it out to Captain Ito. "They were after the Harcourt Diamond. In all the confusion, I didn't have a chance to put it back. Could you return it for me?"

Ito took it and held it up to the light. "Nice rock."

"A little too gaudy for my taste."

The captain glanced down at his tuxedo and quirked an eyebrow up. "Right. The last thing you'd want to be is gaudy, huh?" She put the diamond in an evidence bag and handed it off. "You seen Echo yet?"

"Afraid not, but I owe her my thanks. Had she not shown up when she did, things might have ended unpleasantly."

"Right," Ito said again.

Moments later, a young woman in a black bodysuit trudged through the crowd of police officers, a red electric guitar slung over her shoulders. An Exploud and a Loudred bounded along beside her, and when he looked up, the Phantom could just make out her Noivern swooping and diving against the night sky. When she saw Captain Ito and the Phantom, she straightened, tapped her heels together and gave a brisk salute.

The police captain smiled a bit at that, and inclined her head to Echo. "Damn fine work." She turned to the Phantom. "Both of you. But we'll take it from here."

Echo simply nodded, and after a hesitation he hoped was imperceptible, the Phantom did too. Better that the decision was out of his hands. He and Echo stood off to one side as the police loaded the anarchists into an armored transport. After standing in silence for just long enough for it to be uncomfortable, the Phantom turned to her. "Thank you. You saved me again."

Echo jumped, clearly startled out of some kind of reverie. "Oh," she replied. "Uh, n-no worries. I-It's wh-what we do. H-Heroes and wh-whatever."

"I suppose you're right. Still, I won't forget this. I'll find a way to make it up to you someday." No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't understand Echo. Any time they had found a brief moment to exchange words after a conflict, she had responded only in short, clipped sentences. Shyness was one thing, but it seemed entirely paradoxical that someone who's method of fighting relied entirely on sound, and occasionally her own voice, to be utterly taciturn.

Echo used the natural amplification abilities of her Loudred and Exploud to boost the resonance of her guitar and voice to make criminals yield, holding them in place until the police could arrive. It had proven effective, but there was no way to prevent collateral damage to bystanders. Still, she was good at what she did, and the Phantom had worked together with her on several previous occasions. They weren't formally partners, and didn't coordinate their efforts, they just happened to wind up at the same crime scenes. Greenpoint wasn't such a large borough, really.

Just as the police were about to load Wrath into the transport, there was a loud whoosh, and the Phantom found himself robbed of the ability to see. Judging from the high-pitched tone of alarm Gregor was broadcasting, he was not the only one. An impenetrable field of darkness had descended over the street, and the policemen were shouting to each other, trying to reorganize. The Phantom heard Echo unsling the guitar from her back and strum a few experimental chords, though without the amplification of her Exploud partner. The darkness was so absolute, the Phantom could not even see the faint spectral light of his ghostly legion not twenty feet away.

As quickly as it descended, the darkness disappeared, leaving everyone disoriented and blinking in the glare of the streetlights. A moment later, there was an alarmed shout, and the police all went for their radios. The Phantom swept over to Captain Ito. "What's going on? What just happened?"

The captain shook her head. "Wrath is gone. Someone sprung him."

"S-Sounds like Lust," Echo said. "He's s-s-slipped past me w-with Night Shade before."

"Him and that damned Xatu," Ito growled. "Well, safe to say that the Sins came to collect their own, but they left the rest of his thugs behind. We'll see if we can get some kind of confession out of them. You kids hit the showers, we'll take it from here."

"Are you sure?" the Phantom said. "He can't have gone far, even if he was teleported away. We could canvass the city and—"

"Kid, you do good work. But leave this to us. Head home for the night."

The Phantom wanted to protest, but he felt Gregor's hand on his shoulder, cold and heavy. This was a battle he wasn't going to win. As much as he hated that Wrath had gotten away, a small part of him felt a glow of satisfaction. It meant the bastard was still out there somewhere, and he would have a chance to take him down again. The Phantom gave Captain Ito and Echo each a curt nod. "Until next time, then."

After he dismissed his ghost types for their nightly prowl, Gregor drew him into his body, and the Phantom once again was overcome with acute vertigo as they traveled back through the shadows.

They emerged in a dark, tastefully decorated room, the curtains covering the floor-to-ceiling windows billowing from the slight breeze of their entrance. The Phantom shrugged off his cape and hung it on a carved mahogany coatrack before sinking into an antique leather armchair with a groan. Now that the adrenaline was seeping away, he was starting to become aware of just how sore he was. Wrath had done a number on him.

He felt something warm near his face, and he waved his hand in the air before his eyes. His Chandelure drifted up higher, suffusing his father's study (even after all these years, he still wasn't comfortable thinking of it as his own) with an ethereal glow. He reached over to side table and picked up a crystal decanter of brandy and a highball glass. He poured himself a generous drink and savored the liquor as it traveled down his throat.

Gregor's eye dimmed as the Dusknoir went into a dormant state that passed for sleep. Through the windows, the Phantom could see his ghost types starting to return to the manor grounds, small shadows flitting through the moonlight and passing between the trees. He placed his glass down on the table beside him and ran a fingertip through the layer of dust that had accumulated there. Perhaps it was time he hired back the servants. The mansion had been empty for years now, except for the ghosts.

He took off his mask and sighed. To bring back the servants would mean explaining his comings and goings, and that was something he was loath to do. He had enjoyed his free reign up to this point, but at least to the outside world, the end of his mourning period was long overdue. He was sure people were beginning to talk.

The Harcourt mansion had once been famous for its opulent galas, the place to be for anyone who was anyone in Clarus City to be seen. But since the night his parents died, the mansion had been dark and silent. Edgar Harcourt had not been able to face the public, simpering with concern for his lost parents. Instead, he had withdrawn from public life, and as far as anyone knew, he had not left the manor grounds for years.

Well, at the very least, he had not left the manor as Edgar Harcourt.

Edgar poured himself another brandy, drinking more slowly this time. Something about this latest attack didn't seem right to him. The Sins had been acting erratically lately, striking in broad daylight, hitting targets with no clear value to them. There was a pattern, he was sure, he just could not for the life of him figure out what. Arceus knew he had tried, going so far as to set up a corkboard with little bits of red string connecting things, like a conspiracy nut. But even that had not made the picture any clearer.

It did him no good to dwell on it now, especially since he wanted nothing more than to drink himself into a comfortable stupor. It was a problem for daylight hours, but nonetheless, it was a problem he was determined to solve. He needed to stay one step ahead of the Sins if he was going to bring them down and have his revenge.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Though he would never admit it, Alex's side still ached from a blow he had taken the night before. His suit had managed to cushion the impact, but not enough to avoid leaving a nasty bruise. He knew that when you were a freelance superhero, bruises came with the territory, and as tempting as it was to take a night off to let the bruises fade, he couldn't let himself slack off after every fight where he got banged up, especially not after Wrath's anarchists had blown up the old City Hall in Greenpoint. The whole city was on edge, and crime was only on the rise. The major criminal factions were consolidating their forces for something or other, and the minor elements, the garden variety muggers and thieves, were sensing the tension in the air and capitalizing on the city's fear. The police force was doing everything it could to keep the rise in crime under control while still trying to get to the bottom of what the Sins were up to, but it was starting to strain their resources. The last time Alex had seen Captain Anderson, it looked like he hadn't slept in days.

And so Avenbrooke's friendly neighborhood Hawlucha Man was doing everything he could to help.

Two nights ago, he had helped Detective Reyes and Sergeant Hinako Matsuri chase down the chemists and distributors from a notorious smuggling ring pushing a dangerous new opiate. When Alex had tackled the last man, he had screamed that Gluttony would make them pay for this, that it wouldn't be long before the whole city was paying tribute to the Sins, and the police would wish they had turned tail and ran when they had the chance. Matsuri dismissed it as the usual crap, but something about the way the man said it made Alex uneasy. Normally when criminals talked about their connections to the Sins, it was all bluster and braggadocio to affirm their status in the underworld.

But this man had sounded terrified.

He and Hierro soared from rooftop to rooftop, listening for the sounds of breaking glass or sirens. Instead, they heard a scream. Alex slid to a stop, quickly calculated the best route to the direction of the sound, and took off at a sprint. When he reached the edge of the roof, he spread his arms wide, letting the wingsuit catch the night air and carry him along. It didn't take them long to reach where Alex determined the scream came from, and they saw a woman running out from an alley, nearly tripping in her haste to get away.

She had rounded the corner and vanished before Alex could land, but he heard a man in the darkness pleading. "No, please, Arceus no, you can't do this, please…"

"Stop right there," Alex called as he and Hierro stepped forward.

A snarling mass of fur jumped from the darkness and barred their path. The streetlights made the shells on its legs and head gleam, and a low growl reverberated deep in its chest. Hierro's feathers puffed up as he stared down the Samurott, slowly flexing his talons. "Just keep moving, Hawlucha Man," someone said from the darkness. "This doesn't concern you." There was a thud and the sound of scrapping metal. Then came the sound of a boot striking flesh, and a man fell out of the shadows, blood streaming from his nose. The assailant in the darkness drove a booted foot into his chest, and Alex saw the light catch for just an instant on the broadsword the man carried. He stepped out of the darkness and pointed the blade at the sniveling man.

"Ronin," Alex said. "I don't know what this man's done, but this isn't how we do things. There's a system. It will see justice is done."

The vigilante scoffed. "Bullshit." His silver-gray hair was tied back in a severe ponytail, and he idly swiped at a strand that had come loose. The Ronin pointed with his free hand at the man cowering at his feet. "Take a good look as this bastard. He was in the papers." Alex looked past the blood and grime and tears and realized he did vaguely recall the face, a well-heeled investment banker from midtown who had preyed upon desperate women as a kind of sick hobby, allegedly picking them up off the streets, having his way with them, and then maiming and killing his victims. The trial had been widely publicized, and there had been a public outcry when he had been released after a few key pieces of evidence vanished under mysterious circumstances. "Scum like him think they're above the law" the Ronin growled as he lifted his sword. "I'm showing him that he's not."

"You can't just make yourself the judge, jury and executioner!"

"Oh really?" the Ronin said. When Alex tried to stop him, the swordsman shook his head. "Muramasa, keep them out of my way." He picked the prone man up by the collar of his shirt. "Last chance to come clean." The man was too terrified to say anything. The Ronin shoved him against the wall. "Did you kill those women?"

Finally, the man found his voice. "Please, let me turn myself in. I'll confess to the police, I'll make a statement, I swear!"

The Samurott had tackled Alex and forced him against the far wall of the alley, trapping him with its bulk. Hierro screamed and lunged at the water type, only to be sent sprawling when the Samurott struck him with a torrent of water. Alex struggled to escape the press of fur and muscle. "We can take him to the Eleventh! Don't do this!

"He had his chance." The Ronin threw the man to the ground again. "I'll give you a moment to pray."

"Please, no," the man cried. "I'll give you anything! Name a price! Please, let me go!"

"Pathetic," the Ronin spat. He hauled the man up by his elbow and then forced him to his knees. And then, with no further ceremony, he raised his sword and cut the man's head from his shoulders.

"No!" Alex screamed as the Samurott released him. "He was ready to confess! We could have… it didn't have to go this way!"

"This is was better than he deserved." The Ronin pulled a rag from his belt and wiped the blood from his blade. "If I let him go, he'd just slip through the law again and be back to his old ways in a week." He prodded the corpse with his boot. "He can't hurt anyone anymore."

"You're a monster."

The Ronin shrugged. "You aren't wrong. But at least I'm on your side." He sighed and returned his blade to its scabbard. "I don't want you getting the wrong idea here, Hawlucha Man. I think you do good work, but you're hopelessly naïve." The Ronin's Samurott padded over to him, and the swordsman scratched it under its chin. "Stop me if I'm off the mark here. You started doing this because you saw people getting hurt. Criminals were getting away with things that the police were powerless to stop. They knew how to exploit the laws and get off, so the city needed people to operate outside the law to bring them to justice."

"Yes, but— "

"But nothing. The law can't touch the people you're fighting, just like it couldn't touch this man. For people like the Sins, the Baron, the Kuromori, the truly warped and disgusting, the only way to deal with them," the Ronin patted the sword at his hip, "is to put them down for good."

"I have to believe that there's another way," Alex said, his eyes still fixed on the dead man. "I have to have faith that the law knows better than I do. If I take that power into my own hands, how am I any better than the people I'm fighting?"

"You can't be that fucking stupid," the Ronin snapped. "So long as you're only using your power to hurt people who have hurt others, then you're just balancing the scales."

"That's a slippery slope."

The Ronin scoffed. "The hell it is. Someday soon, you're going to have to make the hard call, or innocent people going to get hurt." His face softened, and for just a moment, he looked like nothing more than a tired old man. "Listen, Hawlucha Man. You must have seen it too. The Sins are planning something. A heist at First Clarus in broad daylight, the old City Hall, Sloth himself at the Industrial Trust… that bastard is moving pieces around the board, and we can't see what he's planning. If you aren't ready to do what has to be done, then maybe it's best you keep your head down and stay out of the way."

"I'm not running from this. I made my choice. I swore an oath to protect this city."

"How noble," the Ronin drawled. "Fucking stupid, but noble. I used to be like you once. A long time ago."

Alex couldn't stop himself from asking. "What happened?"

"I went to war." The Ronin looked straight at him, but Alex got the sense that he was looking through him, at something far away. "I did things, overseas. Things a lot worse than this. It was decades ago, but I'm still trying to atone for it." His focus snapped back. "I may be a monster. But sometimes, a monster is just what this city needs." The Ronin palmed a pokeball, and his Samurott vanished in a flash of red light. "Call the police if you want. They'll find the body soon enough either way." He brushed past Hawlucha Man and straddled a motorcycle parked on the street. He gunned the engine once. "I'm sure we'll run into each other again." And with that, the bike roared to life, and the Ronin shot off up the street.

Alex slumped against the wall and tried to take a deep breath, but the scent o blood and death filled his nostrils. He gestured to Hierro and the two of them crossed the street. Alex dug his cell phone out of a small pouch on his belt and dialed the emergency dispatch. "I… I need to report a homicide." The dispatcher on the other end of the line took down Alex's location with a professionalism that bordered on outright coldness, and informed him that the police would be on their way.

Alex hung up and climbed a low-hanging fire escape to a nearby rooftop. He waited until he heard sirens in the distance before soaring over several streets to a rooftop he had found about a month earlier with a good view of the Concord Bridge and the Umber River. When he alighted on the gravel rooftop he pounded his fist against his leg in frustration. Hierro landed behind him and made an inquisitive chipping deep in his throat. Alex shook his head for a moment as he clenched and unclenched his fist.

Finally, he turned to face his partner. "What if he's right? What if I'm not cut out for this?"

Hierro blinked, turned his head to the side, and shrugged. The chirps turned into a more drawn out coo.

Alex sighed and kicked idly at the gravel. "I just… damn it." The heroes of Clarus City walked a thin line, operating outside the bounds of traditional law enforcement, doing the things that the police couldn't, but it didn't take much for a hero to feel like they were above the law, that just because they fought for the good guys they could hold themselves above the same rules everyone else played by. But Blaziken Man, the first hero, the _greatest_ hero, had a code. He wouldn't overstep, and he wouldn't kill, because everyone deserved a second chance, an opportunity to repent, or at least to have a fair trial in the eyes of the law.

When Alex first donned the Hawlucha Man suit, he had taken a private oath to abide by Blaziken Man's code, to obey the same strictures that Blaziken Man placed on himself, even if doing so put him in danger. The laws existed for a reason, and if he started playing by his own rules, doing what he felt was right with no thought for others, then he was no better than the Baron. Just like Blaziken Man, he had promised himself that he would play by the book, even if the book wasn't always right.

Alex knew he was no Blaziken Man. He wasn't a great hero. When people saw the Ronin, all they felt was fear. But he had seen the effect that Hawlucha Man had on people, way their eyes lit up when he dropped out of the sky to defend them, to fight back the bad guys wherever they showed up. _Hawlucha Man is here! He'll save the day! He'll protect us!_ For years, Avenbrooke had been ground under the Baron's boot, and the people had learned to live with it. But now, they had hope, and a symbol to rally behind, because Hawlucha Man was here and…

Bullshit.

Alex could delude himself into thinking that all he wanted, but he knew, deep down, the real reason he put the suit on night after night, risked serious injury or death was because it was a rush. He had become addicted to the adrenaline that pumped through his veins when he dropped out of the sky and into a fight, the way the wind burned his throat on sharp descents, and the satisfaction of winning a fight. He was just using Hawlucha Man as a pretext to get his fix, and how was that any better than the Ronin taking out his anger at the world on Avenbrooke's criminals in a misguided sense of atonement? They were both being selfish, gambling with their lives and the lives of their partners. Even if he saved people, the very act of saving them was corrupted by his selfish motives, by his desperate attempt to get his fix.

"Hierro, what are we even doing here?" His Hawlucha blinked up at him, clearly not understanding the question. Alex stared down at his hands. "Why are we out here night after night? What's it going to accomplish?"

Hierro seemed to consider this for a moment, and finally he extended his right claw towards Alex. He glanced up at his trainer and then down at the claw, obviously intending Alex to take it. When he did, Hierro led him to the edge of the rooftop and make a quick, all-encompassing gesture with his left claw before extracting his right claw from Alex's grasp and placing it over his heart. "You love the city? Is that it?" Hierro nodded and pointed at Alex again. If his partner hadn't had a beak, he could have sworn that Hierro was smirking. The question Hierro was posing was obvious. "Yeah, I love this city too. And you're saying that's a good enough reason to fight for it on our term?" Hierro nodded, and Alex knew in his heart that it was true, far moreso than a misguided and quixotic quest to be an agent of justice, or the pursuit of an adrenaline rush. He was Hawlucha Man because he loved his city, and he knew that it was worth saving.

Alex reached down and smoothed Hierro's feathers. "Thanks, buddy."

They stood watching the distant glow of taillights crossing the Concord Bridge, the lights on the suspension cable reflected in the dark water below.

Down on the street, a pane of glass shattered and someone screamed. Alex shook himself and Hierro's feathers puffed up. Hawlucha Man spread the arms of his wingsuit and took several steps back from the ledge to get a proper running start. "Break time's over, partner. We have a city to protect."


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

Reyes glanced up as a shape eclipsed the streetlight above the small parking lot. "Right on time," the detective said, feeding the Noctowl on his shoulder another piece of the poppy seed bagel he was picking apart in his hand. Hawlucha Man landed with a grunt and jogged over to where the police cruiser was parked.

"You got the stuff?" Hawlucha Man asked. Reyes picked up a small brown paper bag from the hood of the car and shook it.

"Same as usual. Maple frosted donut for you, sesame seed bagel for your partner."

" _Sweet_." Hawlucha Man rummaged around in the bag and held out the toasted bagel to Hierro. The flying type snatched it and began to nibble away. Hawlucha Man took a bite of his donut. "Sergeant Matsuri not here yet?"

Reyes gestured at the all-night donut shop with his chin. "She had to pee." He scratched his Noctowl's feathers. "Man, I can't believe it's collection night again. Seems like it just happened."

Every month in Avenbrooke, the Baron sent his men around to collect tribute from the local business and landlords. The police had done everything in their power to shut down the extortion, but the Baron was savvy enough to have his accountants and lawyers set the whole enterprise up in a way that was entirely legal and, to the surprise of many, entirely tax deductible. The Baron's men would go and obtain a "voluntary donation" to the Avenbrooke Community Fund, the charity and shell company that the Baron had established to take the "donations". The Fund acted as a perverse sort of insurance that the Baron would dip into to reimburse any business or residence that had been damaged in an operation by one of the other organized crime factions in Clarus City. Though the people of Avenbrooke hated the Baron shaking them down every month, they also weren't fond of the idea of one of Wrath's firebombs going out of control and taking a whole neighborhood with it, so they mostly paid up.

And because every carrot needed a good stick, those that didn't pay tended to wake up one morning and find their home or place of business had been struck by some sort of terrible accident. Holdouts on collection night generally didn't hold out for very long.

Nearly a decade ago, when the Baron had first started collecting, the police had tried to crack down on the Baron's enterprise and stop the whole thing. The Baron had fielded his entire private army of thugs and enforcers against the police force in one of the most infamous nights of violence in Clarus City's history, second only to Sloth's vicious and bloody coup several years later. When the members of the Eleventh who were not comatose or worse arrived at the precinct the next morning, bruised and bleeding, they were greeted in the foyer by Bruce Giordano and Carlo Pirozzi, the latter of whom cheerfully informed them that what he was doing was entirely within the letter of the law and that he had the documentation to prove it.

When they had tried to arrest him for his role in the previous night's riots, it came to light that the rioters had taken their orders from a byzantine array of lieutenants and section bosses, and financed through an equally thorny tangle of shell companies, that there was no way to conclusively tie them back to the Baron, or even substantial evidence to prove that the Baron had been involved in the riots at all. Of course, none of the men they brought in would testify against him.

And so they had been forced to let the Baron walk free.

Now the Avenbrooke police deployed en masse on collection night, but only to step in if things got out of hand. An uneasy and unspoken truce had been established over the years that should one of the Baron's men become too overzealous in extracting tribute, the police could apprehend him and the Baron would disavow any association. It usually meant for a quick trip across the harbor to Redstone Prison, and the looming threat of abandonment by their patron and summary incarceration was enough to keep most of the enforcers in line. But the Eleventh knew better than to take that on faith.

Sergeant Matsuri walked out of the donut shop, her Raichu bounding along after her. "All right boys, up and at 'em." She glanced at Hawlucha Man. "You saving that frosting for later or something?" Hawlucha Man grinned sheepishly and wiped at the corners of his mouth. "Anything on the radio?" Matsuri asked Reyes.

"Nope, but it's early." Reyes watched a few feral ghost types pass in front of the moon and sucked at his teeth. "Seems like there's a lot of new Unovan immigrants around this month. I'm sure they've been warned what's coming, but they aren't gonna like it.

Matsuri nodded and folded her arms. "The whole city feels like a powder keg ready to blow. One little spark is all it's going to take to send the whole thing up in flames."

A crackle came over the police radios. The three pokemon all perked up at the sound, and an instant later, Alex caught the garbled voice of a dispatcher. Reyes glanced over at Alex. "Call for backup at Third and Cedar. It's a bit of a winding route in the car…"

"But as the Murkrow flies, piece of cake," Alex said, finishing the thought. "I'll head over."

"We'll be right behind you," Matsuri said, swinging into the driver's side and firing up the sirens.

Reyes muttered something to the Noctowl on his shoulder, and the bird took off on soundless wings, spiraling up into the night air. "I'm sending Bella with you," the detective said. "From what we got over the radio, sounds like there are shots fired. If you get there before us, be careful."

"Got it."

"I'd say don't be a hero, kid…"

"But that's kind of the job description, yeah." Alex was already sprinting to one of the four fire escapes he had identified around the donut shop. Hierro kicked off the walls of the alley to climb progressively higher while Alex scrambled up the iron steps, the metal clanging under his footfalls. He and his partner sprinted across the rooftop and spread their wings, soaring out over the street. Reyes and Matsuri's cruiser screamed around a corner, and Reyes's Noctowl swooped down to fly alongside them. Alex hit the next rooftop running, and in seconds he was airborne again. Hierro caught his eye as they glided, and he saw the Hawlucha's irises shining in the streetlights flashing along below.

The rapid report of gunfire greeted them as they touched down on a tenement rooftop on Cedar Avenue. Two pairs of police officers were crouching behind their cars, trading gunfire with a group of the Baron's enforcers taking cover behind a car of their own in front of a storefront with shattered windows. Alex could see an older couple huddling near the store counter trying to make themselves as small as possible to avoid stray bullets. "You go left," he said to Hierro. "I'll go right. Ready?"

Hierro bobbed up and down in a full-body nod. They stepped back a few paces to get a proper running start before jumping. Alex counted three enforcers, a Machoke, a Tyrunt, and a Magneton. He knew that the advantage of a surprise attack would only last for a second, and he needed to make that second count. Humans and most pokemon that weren't small prey animals didn't usually bother to account for an attack coming from above, and that was an advantage Alex and Hierro had continued to press.

"Listen up assholes!" Alex shouted as his foot connected with one of the enforcers' noses. The man fell to his knees, clutching his face as blood poured between his fingers. Hierro slammed into the Machoke before executing a backflip and driving his taloned foot into the sternum of the second enforcer. "I'm guessing the cops already gave you a chance to drop your weapons, so I'm skipping right to the part where we kick your asses." Alex spun his batons and clubbed the Tyrunt across its snout. The rock type gave a stunned yelp while Alex turned and drove the heel of his foot between its eyes. He snapped his leg back and threw out a kick behind him, catching the third enforcer in the groin. When the man bent over with a low moan of pain, Alex whirled around with a roundhouse kick and dropped him.

Hierro swept the Machoke off its feet before bounding off one of the bullet-riddled cars to deliver a punishing jump kick to finish the hulking fighting type off. Before Hierro could recover, the Magneton began to hum as electricity sparked along its magnetic poles. Alex knew his fists couldn't deter the steel type, and he had been unable to find a non-conducive metal to make his batons. Anything he did to try to stop the Magneton would have been not only fruitless, but also very likely to seriously injure himself as well. And unlike Hierro, Alex's body lacked the rapid metabolism that allowed pokemon to recover from severe attacks quickly.

Just as Alex had braced himself for what was to come, Bella dropped out of the sky with a rush of wind. The gale spun the Magneton around, and the steel type's eyes rolled as it struggled to reorient itself and charge up again. Before it managed to do so, Hierro had slammed his foot into the center of the cluster before hurling it to the ground. The Magneton buzzed faintly before it went offline. Bella landed on Alex's shoulder as the Tyrunt struggled back to its feet. The Noctowl's eyes briefly flashed red, and the rock type fell in heap, knocked unconscious by the Noctowl's psychic powers.

Reyes stepped out of the cruiser and held out his arm for Bella. The flying type flapped over to him, and the detective raised an eyebrow. "Matsuri and I got here a minute ago, but you seemed like you had things under control. You earned that donut tonight."

Alex reached out to smooth down Hierro's ruffled feathers and grinned. "All in a night's work."

Matsuri and the other officers were helping the shopkeeper and his wife out of the wreckage of their storefront and calling for a paramedic team for what looked like a possible concussion for the man. One of the officers handcuffed the three enforcers and put in a call for the PPS to take care of their downed pokemon. He nodded to Alex. "Nice work, Hawlucha Man. Who knows what they could have done if you hadn't shown up?"

The police radio crackled again, and this time Alex was close enough to hear it for himself. "Requesting backup from all available units. Code three-five-nine at Seventh and Whitechapel. Repeat, code three-five-nine at Seventh and Whitechapel."

Alex caught Reyes's eye and nodded, already running for the nearest fire escape. Whitechapel was only a few streets over, and Alex could be there in minutes if he hurried. Three-five-nine meant an esper was involved, and when espers were involved, things tended to get messy.

As Alex hauled himself up an iron ladder, he shook his head. "I've got to get myself a grappling hook or something." He and Hierro took off over the blocks of the apartment buildings, angling towards Whitechapel. The wind was in their favor, and they quickly made their way over the three city blocks. They ran parallel to the street across the rooftops towards the flashing police sirens.

Two of the Baron's men stood before the arched doorway of a rundown brownstone apartment building, glowering at the police. "No one's getting roughed up here!" one of the enforcers shouted. "Mr. Pirozzi is just conducting some business. No need for this to get ugly."

"Yeah!" the second man added. "We don't want to waste the CCPD's time, now. I'm sure you got better things to do than harass a local businessman doing some community outreach." A third floor window shattered outward, and a man fell screaming to the sidewalk. There was a sickening crunch as his body hit the pavement, and the second enforcer grimaced as some of the third man's blood splashed across his face.

Alex glanced at his partner. "Looks like we've got a way in. I'll take point." They soared out over the street, and Alex adjusted his body so that he fell through the broken window feet-first. He rolled across the uneven wooden floor to cushion the impact and came up with his batons in hand. Hierro dropped in behind him, landing nimbly on his feet. Alex heard the click of a gun being cocked, and raised his eyes to see Bruce Giordano pointing a pistol between his eyes.

"Bad move, Hawlucha Man."

Alex signaled for Hierro to stand down, and the Hawlucha complied, though his feathers remained puffed up. Carlo Pirozzi turned around and rolled his eyes. "You really do have the worst timing, don't you?" He smoothed a crease in his suit jacket. "It would be troublesome to kill you at the moment, but I really can't have you interfering. Mr. Espalier, if you would be so kind?"

Something shifted in the shadows behind the Baron, and an instant later Alex found himself trapped in an invisible box. "No," he gasped, realizing why the Baron was here. What he had come for. And then, louder, "No! Pierre, whatever he's told you, _do not_ listen to him!" He hammered his fists against the invisible walls that contained him, and though the walls felt solid beneath his hands, they made no sound. Pierre slunk out of the shadows and spread his hands in an apologetic shrug.

"I'm sorry, Hawlucha Man. But every time I listen to you, Mimsy and I get hurt." He tugged at his tattered stripped shirt. "But Mr. Pirozzi promised to give me a job. I can keep Mimsy safe."

"He's going to exploit you. He wants to use your powers to do bad things!"

Pierre sighed and turned his head in a slow circle before settling his half-vacant stare back on Hawlucha Man. "I didn't ask for my powers. I don't want them in my brain. I just want to have friends, but I can't because of my _stupid_ powers."

"The Baron is not your friend."

"I know. But at least he's honest with me." A smile tugged at the side of Pierre's mouth. "I'm going to go with Mr. Pirozzi. Something bad is coming, Hawlucha Man. The whispers in my head have been telling me that for a long time now. I just want to make sure that Mimsy is safe." Pierre turned to the Baron. "Please don't hurt him. I know we're on different sides now, but Hawlucha Man is the closest thing I have to a friend."

The Baron and Giordano shared a look. The bodyguard shrugged and cracked his knuckles. "I won't hurt him if he compromises. That's all I can promise."

"Okay." Pierre's melancholy disappeared, replaced by an effervescent bubbliness. "Bye, Hawlucha Man!" Two of the Baron's men hustled him down the darkened back stair of the apartment. The Baron strode over to where Alex was trapped, the heels of his expensive shoes clicking on the scuffed, uneven wood floor of the apartment.

"Mr. Espalier, addled though he may be, does have a point, Hawlucha Man." Carlo Pirozzi adjusted the sleeve of his silk shirt underneath the cuff of his tailored suit jacket. "A storm is coming to Clarus City. When the dust settles, we'll see the strong separated from the weak. You ought to take care to batten down your hatches." The Baron shrugged. "Consider this a warning, in the interest of fair play."

"Whatever you're trying to do, I'll stop you!"

Pirozzi chuckled. "My boy, I have no intention of doing anything. I am merely heeding my own advice and consolidating my resources. The various other factions at play in the city are more than welcome to tear each other to shreds. I shall wait on the sidelines. Scavenging among the scraps is not glamorous work, though it is profitable." He turned on his heel and walked over to the darkened doorway Pierre had disappeared through. "When everything hits the fan, as they say in the common parlance, do remember: I _did_ warn you." He cleared his throat. "Mr. Giordano, wrap things up here and report back to me at your earliest convenience. You'll have to excuse me, but I have a contract to draft up for Mr. Espalier."

The sounds of his footfalls vanished down the stairs, and Bruce consulted his expensive wristwatch. "That box is gonna disappear in a minute. The esper is a weird one, but I kinda like him, and the boss didn't exactly tell me what to do. So I'll give you a choice. You want to do this the easy way, or the hard way?"

Alex felt the invisible wall start to give way underneath his hands. It didn't shatter or crumble, it just began to feel less solid, until finally the sensation of pressing up against something simply faded as though it was never there. Alex's hands twitched down to the batons on his belt and he saw Hierro bracing himself in his peripheral vision. But before Alex could respond one way or the other, the door to the apartment flew open.

"Freeze!" Detective Reyes shouted, leading in a team of armored and helmeted response units. A Drapion squeezed its way through the doorframe and clacked its mandibles, awaiting the orders of its trainer within the squadron. Reyes turned his gun on Giordano. "What's going on here?"

Giordano held his hands up. "Easy, officers. No need to raise our voices. Hawlucha Man and I were just having a civil discussion. I assume that's still legal?"

Reyes flicked his gaze over to Hawlucha Man. "Is that all?"

Alex nodded. "They weren't doing anything illegal. Nothing we can pin them with, at least."

"The esper?"

"Pierre Espalier. He's gone, and the Baron is too."

Giordano smiled, pressing his lips together in a thin line. "Now that our fine feathered friend has vouched for my conduct, am I free to go? Or am I being detained?"

Reyes stepped aside. "Go."

Giordano's smile widened a nearly imperceptible amount as he sauntered past the riot squad and made his way down the creaking front steps. Once he had reached the street level, Reyes dismissed the armored police as well. When they were gone, he holstered his sidearm and turned back to Alex. "What happened?"

"The Baron made some kind of offer to Pierre—"

"Pierre's the motor mouth mime that keeps breaking out of St. Ambrosius, right?"

"Yeah. Anyway, he makes him and offer and Pierre took it. I don't know the specifics. I tried to talk him out of it, but…"

Reyes laid a hand on Alex's shoulder. "You did everything you could. You can't win every fight, and you can't save everyone."

"I know, it's just…" Alex sighed. "This one was personal. I let him down. Pierre went with the Baron because I failed him."

"You'll have another chance. He's still out there. In the meantime," Reyes clapped Alex on the back, "you saved a few damn good police officers tonight. You ought to be proud yourself." The detective grinned. "I'm thinking you might have even earned a second donut. I'll even throw in a cup of coffee."

"Well, aren't you in a giving mood."

Reyes laughed and led Alex and Hierro down the stairs of the apartment. Before they walked out into the street, Reyes caught his arm. "All joking aside, you do good work. The Eleventh is lucky to have you."

Alex nodded. "Reyes, before the Baron left, he said that a storm was coming to Clarus City. Do the police know anything I don't?"

"Ah, hell," Reyes replied with a shake of his head. "When isn't this city teetering on the brink? Whatever's coming, we'll ride it out, same as we always _do."_


	8. Chapter 8

_CHAPTER 8_

 _The commissary buzzed with conversation as Alex loaded up a lunch tray and scanned the room for an empty spot to bolt down a quick meal before his next lab. He was reaching for an apple when the large television screens in the dining hall all flashed to an emergency broadcast signal. Someone lunged for the AV controls and turned up the volume. A female news anchor appeared on the screen, looking slightly panicked._

 _"Attention, citizens of Clarus City. By order of the CCPD, a lockdown is now in effect. Midtown Clarus City has been targeted in a terrorist attack by Marcus Braun and his associates. Citizens are advised to stay in a secure location. The police are mobilizing to deal with this threat, and more information will be forthcoming as soon as we have it." She touched her earpiece and nodded quickly. "I am being told that we have received an audio transmission from Jiro Sasaki now, who is working with the Clarus City Police. Uh, Jim, play it, okay?"_

 _A file photo of Blaziken Man appeared on the screen and the recording began with a burst of static and a loud report of what could only be gunshots. "Citizens of Clarus City," Blaziken Man's voice said. "I implore you to remain, oh son of a, to remain calm! The CCPD is doing everything in their power to contain this. Volcarona Mask and I are already on the scene, and officers from precincts all over the city are reporting in._

 _"But the Commissioner Bright and I want every available resource at our disposal to deal with this threat. I'm not sure I have the authority to do this, but at this point—" His voice was cut off by a burst of static. "At this point, I don't see much of a choice. Heroes of Clarus City, I'm calling all of you in."_

 _Alex's tray clattered to floor as he turned on his heel and sprinted for the nearest bathroom. He dug the Hawlucha Man costume from his backpack and hastily pulled it on, dragging the mask over his eyes and calling Hierro from his pokeball. "This is the big one, partner. We just got called in by Blaziken Man_ _himself."_

 _Hierro straightened and puffed up his feathers, clearly ready to be off. They raced up the staircase of the student union building to the small utility closet that led to the roof access. "Hey!" a maintenance worker shouted as Alex and Hierro ran by. "You can't go in there!"_

 _"Official city business!" Alex called as he pulled himself up the ladder to the roof. He didn't wait to hear the man's reply. He took off over the rooftop, his legs pumping as he ran for the edge. An instant later, he was soaring out over the quadrangle of the Avenbrooke Institute of Technology, angling to reach the lower roofs of the administrative buildings on the far side where he could climb to a better vantage point._

 _He and Hierro bounded from rooftop to rooftop, soon leaving the campus behind as they crossed over into residential Avenbrooke. Police sirens filled the air, and columns of smoke rose up over midtown Clarus City across the river. Alex put on a burst of speed, every fiber of his body straining to be closer to the action, to the fighting._

 _A squad car sped along the street parallel to him, its siren whooping. "Hawlucha Man!" Captain Anderson called from the loudspeaker. "Get down here! We're supposed to get you across the river!"_

 _Alex angled his body and swooped down to street level, where Anderson's police cruiser stopped with a squeal of tires. Captain Anderson reached across the central console and popped the passenger side door open. "The whole city's gone to hell!" the captain snapped. "But if the commissioner says she wants all boots on the ground, then who am I to question her?" Alex slid into the passenger seat as Hierro crammed himself into the back with Oscar, Anderson's Houndoom. The police radio in the cruiser crackled constantly, and Anderson drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on the dial, constantly changing between frequencies. "Whole city's gone to hell," Anderson said again._

 _"What happened exactly?" Alex asked as they hurtled down the streets of Avenbrooke. "The emergency broadcast just said there was a terrorist attack and the Sins are responsible."_

 _"Explosions," Anderson replied through clenched teeth. "All across the city, all at once. And if that wasn't bad enough, as soon as we move in to start damage control, every damn thug in Clarus City shows up and starts rioting. I have no clue what Sloth's game is here, but I can tell you one thing. Wrath must be as happy as a kid on Solstice."_

 _They pulled into an open lot near the piers where four black police helicopters stood waiting. Anderson got out of the car and motioned for Alex to follow. "We're taking those?"_

 _The captain nodded. "Pride has her goons blocking the bridge. We're trying to break through on the ground, but there's no time to waste." He swung up into the first chopper where Reyes, Matsuri and three other members of the Tenth Precinct's best and brightest were waiting. Anderson returned Oscar to his pokeball and grabbed one of the canvas straps hanging from the ceiling, motioning for Alex and Hierro to do the same. The rotors began to whir, and soon they were airborne. The small fleet of helicopters swung out over the river, keeping the Concord Bridge to the right. As they came in low, Alex spotted a solitary motorcycle hurtling towards the barricade of wrecked cars Pride's men had created._

 _The motorcycle weaved between the police cars the officers were using as cover in the shootout and poured on speed. The rider tossed something out in front of the bike, and a large blue mass appeared beside him, already charging forward even before the light from the pokeball cleared. The rider reached for the long parcel on his back, and when he held it alongside him, the afternoon light glinted off the blade of his broadsword. The Ronin and his Samurott didn't slow down as he raced towards the blockade, the water type knocking cars out of the way to clear a path for his trainer. The Ronin's blade flashed as he swung it around, decapitating one of the terrorists as he continued to speed on towards the city. The whole thing happened so fast that Pride's men hadn't had the chance to come to their senses and fire off even a single shot._

 _Alex glanced over at Anderson, but the captain just shrugged. "Good riddance."_

 _The helicopters angled southward, passing over the fringe of the financial district. Alex saw smoldering craters dotted across the city, the source of the smoke pillars he had seen from Avenbrooke. "This is awful," he shouted over the helicopter blades. "They won't get away with this!"_

 _Hierro tugged at his arm and pointed at the streets below. Alex squinted and saw a man in a black cloak whirling amidst a crowd of Wrath's anarchists and surrounded by a seething mass of ghost types. More reinforcements were arriving, and soon the man in black would be overwhelmed. Alex nodded and turned to Anderson. "We're going down there. He needs help."_

 _"Don't be crazy!" Reyes shouted. "Backup is probably on the way!"_

 _"We'll see you when this is over."_

 _Alex and Hierro jumped from the helicopter, angling their bodies into streamlined arrows to cut down on wind resistance. The ground rushed up towards them, and Alex exhaled. He had never tested his wingsuit from this height before, and he had no way of knowing if this would work. He supposed he was about to find out._

 _Hierro caught his eye and nodded, and they spread their wings. Alex felt the material catch the wind and buoy him up, slowing his descent as he soared over the street. "Wa-hoooo!" he screamed as he shot between two buildings, Hierro just behind him. Gliding over the roofs of Avenbrooke was one thing, but this was truly flying! Alex adjusted his weight to drop to the ground and landed with a somersault to spare his knees the impact. His batons were already in his hands when he came up, and he clocked an anarchist across the face as Hierro dropped a second with a kick. Alex cried out when a Dusknoir appeared next to him, but the ghost type's fist shot out and took out a pouncing Darmanitan._

 _"What are you doing?" the Phantom snapped as he lashed out with his cane. "I have this area under control!"_

 _"You were about to be overwhelmed!" Alex parried a Mienshao and sent it towards Hierro. The Hawlucha jumped backwards to kick off a Graveller and tackled the vulpine fighting type._

 _The Phantom scoffed as he twirled his cane around and clubbed the heavy weighted end across a rioter's temple. "Overwhelmed?" He snapped his gloved left hand, and the cloud of shrieking ghost types overhead descended on the mob, flitting between the combatants and wreaking havoc. "I can handle it myself! Just stay back!"_

 _The Dusknoir appeared at the Phantom's side and threw a series of punches at an approaching Seviper and Toxicroak before vanishing again to reappear in the midst of a cluster of anarchists. Hierro took up position at Alex's back, his claws flexing as he surveyed their foes. Alex twirled his batons and shook his head. "Blaziken Man called us in. We ought to be working together!"_

 _"I don't need help!" the Phantom growled. He snapped his fingers twice, and a massive Haunter descended from above to attack a group of anarchists. "Damn it, you're only getting in my way!"_

 _Hierro whistled through his beak as he lunged at a Machoke's knees, knocking the hulking fighting type off-balance. Alex dropped to a crouch and kicked the Machoke off its feet, sending it toppling backwards on top of an_ Exeggutor _. A pack of Mightyena loped towards them, and Alex and Hierro began to beat them back, away from the Phantom's specters. "This isn't the time to show off how tough you are!" Alex called to the other hero. "We need to protect the city, and we're stronger together!"_

 _"I_ _am_ _trying to protect the city," The Phantom punched a thug and sent the man sprawling backwards, blood pouring from his nose. "By taking out the greatest threat to it. I need to lure Wrath out and take him down."_

 _"You can't go up against Wrath on your own!"_

 _"I did once before, and this time, I'm prepared."_

 _Before Alex could reply, several clouds of thick white smoke appeared in the mob and rapidly spread out over the ground. He heard police sirens and saw their flashing blue and red lights through the haze. A large glowing shape passed by overhead, and he heard someone alight on the ground not far from him._

 _"Hit the showers, rookies! The pros will take it from here!"_

 _A hot wind blew the smoke away, revealing Volcarona Mask and her partner, and a police perimeter surrounding the mob. Volcarona Mask winked at Alex. "Not bad, boys. But we've got to wrap this up quick, so I'll take this off your hands. Why don't you go find somewhere else to play?" She pirouetted in place and pointed at the crowd of anarchists. "Let's give 'em hell, Aethon!" Her Volcarona shook out its wings, shaking burning scales out into the mob. The men began to run as a hot wind blew from the fire type's beating wings, setting their clothing ablaze. They ran right into the police cordon, where the assembled officers and riot squads attempted to apprehend them._

 _The Phantom hissed a curse and seized Alex and Hierro's hands. Before Alex could protest, the Phantom's Dusknoir loomed up behind them and wrapped them in an embrace. Alex's vision went dark and he experienced an acute sense of vertigo even as he felt his body stretched out and narrowed, as though he was being drawn through a straw. He began to panic, but he felt the Phantom's hand tighten around his own, a hard pressure that was at once comforting and an admonishment. Then, as quickly as the bizarre sensation began, Alex was free of it._

 _He staggered forward and found himself on the gravel roof of a nearby skyscraper. Volcarona Mask and her police allies were still fighting down below. Hierro whirled on the Phantom and shrieked angrily, his feathers puffed up and his eyes flashing with rage and indignation. The Phantom raised a contemptuous eyebrow. "Hardly the thanks I expected."_

 _Alex turned to him, his hands balled into fists. "What did you just do?"_

 _The Phantom gestured to Alex's wingsuit. "Your gimmick is useless unless you have somewhere to fly from, right?" He nodded towards his Dusknoir. "Gregor can travel between shadows. I just let you two hitch a ride."_

 _"I, well… thank you."_

 _"Don't mention it."_

 _"But why did we leave?"_

 _"Volcarona Mask can take care of herself. Just like her to show up and ruin everything." The Phantom kicked at the gravel. "Anyway, with her there, Wrath was never going to show up. I'll have to start over again."_

 _"We should stick together. We make a good team."_

 _"I don't do teams." The Phantom flicked his cloak back as his Dusknoir put a hand on his shoulder. The ghost type seemed to narrow and slip into the nearest patch of shadow, vanishing in an instant._

 _Hierro glanced at Alex and shrugged. Alex huffed out a breath. "Well, he didn't have to be rude about it." He stepped back from the edge of the roof and looked up and down the street. This was one of the shorter buildings on an avenue lined with skyscrapers, but further towards the city center, Alex could see several older buildings with lower roofs, roofs he could jump from. He signaled to Hierro, and the two of them launched themselves into the air._

 _They flew down the steel and glass canyons of Clarus City, the bomb craters only growing worse the closer they got to midtown. They landed in rooftop gardens and on office patios, catching updrafts from subway vents and the sea wind where they could. The sounds of sirens, explosions and gunshots echoed between the buildings. As they alighted on another gravel rooftop, Alex saw movement on a nearby street. A girl with platinum blonde hair stood on a narrow stone platform supported by two baroque columns marking the entrance of the main branch of the First Clarus Bank. She was flanked by a Loudred and an Exploud, and her hair flew about her face as she snapped her head up and down, playing hard on a red electric guitar. A Noivern swooped and dove over her head, harrying another mob of the Sins' thugs below her._

 _Alex squinted and saw that something about her music was holding the men in place, as though they were fighting a strong wind. She reached down and flicked something on her matte black bodysuit, and her music amplified even louder, so Alex could finally pick out her words._

 _"…no retreat, no surrender, never compromise!_

 _We're gonna burn you up, you're gonna feel the heat!"_

 _She struck a pose with a flourish and shouted down a taunt that Alex didn't catch before going back to playing, her hair flying around her face like a halo._

 _"Tonight, all warriors scream!_

 _Justice and metal! Justice and metal!_

 _The crusade goes on and on!"_

 _She threw her head back and took a deep breath, and Alex saw her Loudred and Exploud brace themselves. Her Noivern dropped out of the sky, the dragon's nostrils flaring. The guitarist struck another chord as she snapped her head forward and_ _screamed_ _in unison with her Noivern._

 _"_ _JUSTICE AND METAAAAAL!"_

 _The force of her shout and the sonic blast of her Noivern merged with the explosive power of her other pokemon's abilities, and the resulting sound wave struck the assembled mob with a physical force. Alex could have sworn he saw the pulse actually ripple through the air. The thugs closest to the guitarist were lifted off their feet and flung through the air, some of them tumbling almost half a block before they came to rest._

 _Alex turned to Hierro. "I think she's got that under control." Hierro nodded, and they took off again._

 _A few blocks later, they heard someone scream in terror. A group of Gluttony's men had herded a crowd of people into a plaza and were prowling around their perimeter. A Tyranitar, a Drapion and a pack of Pawniard and Bisharp circled the civilians as the leader of the thugs shouted at them. Alex didn't even stop to think, and an instant later he was soaring out over the plaza. "Listen up, assholes!" he shouted as he dropped out of the sky. He drove his fist into the leader's solar plexus and gritted his teeth. "I don't know what filthy sewer you crawled out of, but you're in for a world of hurt!"_

 _One of the thugs rushed at him with a switchblade, and Alex disarmed him with his batons before smashing them across the man's face. The Tyranitar roared and lumbered towards him, but Hierro dropped out of the sky and pummeled the dark type, darting in circles around the larger pokemon. Alex and Hierro twirled and circled, beating back the gangsters and their pokemon and taking care not to let the Drapion sink its poisoned mandibles into them. "Go!" Alex called over his shoulder at the terrified civilians. "Run, get out of here!"_

 _A few people raced off down the nearby streets, but most of them were too afraid to move. Alex kicked away a Pawniard and growled under his breath. He and Hierro were dramatically outnumbered, and they wouldn't be able to hold out for long. He had hoped that he could draw the attention of Gluttony's men for long enough to allow the civilians to escape, but if they weren't moving…_

 _As Alex tried to formulate a plan, a large dark shape eclipsed the sunlight. There was a flash, and a beam of green and gold light shot across the ground, striking the Tyranitar. A pair of vines lifted a figure off the creature's back and carried her to the ground. Alex could only watch wide-eyed as a goddess descended before him. Her orange sari flared around her ankles as she twirled, casting a handful of pokeballs towards the thugs. Her golden bangles flashed as she raised her hands above her head and snapped her long, elegant fingers. "Isolate and contain!"_

 _Her three pokeballs flashed, revealing two Torterra and a Venusaur. The behemoths lumbered towards the criminals who were now hastily calling out more pokemon. A flock of Golbat and Crobat took to the sky, only to be struck by a gale from the woman's Tropius. The first Torterra slammed into the Tyranitar while the second barreled towards the Pawniard harrying Alex and Hierro. The Venusaur roared as vines whipped from the flower on its back, snapping around the waists and arms of the men. Alex could only stand with his mouth agape. A pack of baying Mightyena raced towards the woman, but she seemed blithely unconcerned. "Rose legion! Iron legion! Let's go!"_

 _Several dark shapes leapt from the roofs of nearby buildings, landing lightly on the street. A group of fifteen to twenty Scizor jumped back up into the air to beat the bat pokemon into submission while a similar number of Roserade set upon the Mightyena. A Raticate pounced at the woman in orange, only to be tackled to the ground by a Tsareena. A second hustled out of an alleyway and kicked the rodent back into the crowd of thugs before standing guard with its compatriot in front of her trainer._

 _When the Roserade had managed to subdue the Mightyena, the Dryad snapped her fingers again. "Rose legion, that's enough. We can handle things from here, get the civilians to safety." The Roserade raced forward and began to corral the civilians away from the plaza while guarding their retreat. While the Dryad's pokemon continued to drive back Gluttony's men and their pokemon, she turned to Alex and walked to his side, her Tsareena honor guard just a pace behind. "You did very well, jumping in when you did." She smiled, and Alex felt a warm glow spreading from his chest and through his limbs. Just feeling her eyes on him was like standing in a pool of sunlight._

 _Hierro's elbow jabbed him in the ribs. "Oh, uh, thank you."_

 _She winked. "I almost felt bad stepping in. The way you fight, I'm sure you could have handled them on your own."_

 _Alex was glad that his mask mostly covered his blush. "Well, I, uh, I appreciate the assist."_

 _The Dryad nodded and looked over to where her Scizor and Torterra were subduing the few remaining thugs. "My pokemon and I can finish things up here. Once my Roserade get back, we'll move on too." She ran a hand through her thick dark hair. "Keeping this under control is a nightmare."_

 _"No one said the hero thing was going to be easy."_

 _The Dryad smiled again. "You're absolutely right. If we get through this, perhaps we'll have the chance to team up again someday, Hawlucha Man."_

 _After Alex and Hierro had taken off again down the eerily empty streets of midtown, Alex turned to his partner. "She knows who I am! The Dryad knows who I am!" Hierro just rolled his eyes and scanned the buildings for a fire escape._

 _For all the Dryad's praise of Alex's prowess, he and Hierro were at their best when they could drop down on their quarry from above, taking them by surprise and ending a fight quickly. Trapped on the ground, Alex was little better than a street brawler in a fancy costume. In Avenbrooke, the proliferation of tenement buildings only a few stories high with convenient fire escapes made rooftop access easy, but here in the heart of midtown Clarus City, the buildings rose up in sheer cliffs that were thirty, forty, fifty stories tall, depriving Alex of his principal advantage. Even if he could just get to where the subway switched to an elevated train several blocks uptown, that would be something._

 _"Well, well, well. A hero." A man with a scarred face slunk out from the shadows of an office building atrium. A Weavile crouched at his heels, and a Druddigon lumbered out behind them. Alex turned to run, but a Muk oozed up from a sewer grate, spreading its arms and cutting off Alex's escape. The man drew a long, wickedly sharp knife from his boot and whistled. "I was about to take a break, but Pride did say she was paying good money for the head of every hero we brought back."_

 _Alex drew his batons as Hierro slid into a fighting stance. One man wouldn't be hard to take out, and if Hierro could dispatch the Weavile, they could escape the dragon and the poison type. It was hardly a noble retreat, but Alex was starting to feel like he was in way over his head, and no one could blame him if he cut and run from one fight._

 _"I don't know this one," a new voice said from across the street. A heavily muscled man lurched out of the alley, a Krookodile sauntering after him. "You sure Pride will pay?"_

 _"He's got a mask on, and he looks ready to fight," a third man scoffed, this one skinny as a broom. "He fits the profile. Pride may not pay top dollar for a pipsqueak like him, but I'll wager that she'll pay." His two Scyther leered at Hierro. Alex glanced around and saw more men and woman bleeding out of the shadows. He had somehow managed to wander into a nest of Pride's enforcers, and the lapse in judgment was undoubtedly going to get him killed._

 _He settled into a fighting crouch beside Hierro. "We may be going down, but we'll go down swinging." Hierro nodded and flexed his claws. The scarred man rushed in, and Alex swept low, taking out the man's knees. Hierro delivered a quick one-two punch to the leaping Weavile, stunning the ice type long enough for Alex and Hierro to dodge out of the way of the Muk and attack the Druddigon together. One of the thin man's Scyther rushed in, and Alex caught the bug type's blades on his batons. Hierro launched himself off of Alex's back and delivered a flying kick to the bug type's jaw, knocking it back into the atrium of the building the scarred man had emerged from._

 _While Alex turned to deal with an approaching Hitmonlee, Hierro finished off the Weavile, hurling it against the pillars of the First Clarus Post Office. Alex ducked out of the way of the Hitmonlee's first kick, but before he could counter, the fighting type was struck by a spray of incendiary seeds. The large man and his Krookodile charged in only to be hit by a similar barrage. Alex and Hierro shared a glance and decided in an instant not to question their mysterious benefactor, but before they could strike out again, someone up the street whooped, the sound echoing between the buildings._

 _"Yippie-ki-yay, bitches!"_

 _Some kind of siren arced over Alex's head, emitting a bizarre, high-pitched whistle. Alex gritted his teeth and tried not to let the noise get to him, knowing that if he threw up his hands to cover his ears, Pride's men would seize the opening. "C'mon, partner, get outta there! I'm trying to give you an opening!" a man's voice shouted. A series of small explosions burst at the feet of Alex's foes, forcing them to retreat just long enough for Alex and Hierro to run towards the source of the voice. "The range is hot!" the man hollered, firing another barrage of his incendiary projectiles. A Darmanitan tried to grab Hierro as they ran by, but another blast of seeds sent the fire type back._

 _Alex's benefactor was a man in an anachronistic leather vest over an embroidered blue and white gingham shirt, a red bandana knotted around his neck. He had strapped a bandolier over his chest and carried a six-shot revolver in his right hand. He didn't look up as he chambered six bullets, but when he slid the cylinder home, he tapped two fingers on his left hand to the brim of his wide-brimmed hat. "Figured you could use a hand, partner," he drawled. The way he said it drew out the sounds of his words, so that Alex could hear every syllable of "parrdner". "Let me take a crack at 'em." He raised his gun and closed one eye. "Keep 'em pinned, Geronimo!"_

 _The Gunslinger fired off five shots in rapid succession. Alex waited for explosions or a burst of noise, but nothing happened. "Wait for it," the Gunslinger muttered. A few of Pride's thugs, seeing that the Gunslinger's bullets had seemingly all missed, took a few hesitant steps forward. A burst of seeds shot out in front of them, clearly marking a line they were not to cross. A few more of the thugs moved in, scanning the buildings for the unseen assailant._

 _"First you line 'em up," the Gunslinger said. "Then you knock 'em down." He fired his sixth bullet into the ground at the thugs' feet, and Alex watched in a mix of awe and horror as their bodies contorted and fell to the ground. The Gunslinger smirked and doffed his hat. "Now that's how it's done, partner! Yeeee-haw!" He winked at Alex. "Galvantula thread. Conducts current like a dream, once you give it a little spark." He plucked another cluster of bullets from his bandolier and deftly chambered the rounds. "But the fun's not over yet. You ready to go another round?"_

 _"What?"_

 _"There's a fair few varmints left to round up and I'm fresh out of Galvantula bullets, so we gotta do this the hard way. But," the Gunslinger shrugged, "I'm not much for hand-to-hand combat. Why don't you and your bird take point? I'll get your flanks, and Geronimo will watch your back." He clicked back the hammer on his revolver. "You in, partner?"_

 _Alex couldn't help but grin before nodding to Hierro. The two of them sprinted back down the street as the Gunslinger whooped behind them. Hierro bounded up and over an abandoned taxi and sprang into the air, spreading his wings and soaring towards the mob of thugs and enforcers. The Hawlucha crashed into an Electabuzz, and before the electric type could recover, Hierro had bounded backwards and tackled it into a charging Machoke. Alex slid under a Darmanitan's swinging fists and kicked up at the fire type's center of mass, knocking it off its feet. As Alex stood, he saw one of Pride's enforcers rushing at him with a switchblade. Before he could get his batons up, the woman crumpled in a heap, a strange dart sticking out of the side of her neck._

 _The Gunslinger fired off two more shots, and two more thugs went down. Alex could see that the men were still breathing, so he assumed the darts used some kind of fast acting sleeping agent, another one of the Gunslinger's trick bullets. As a Staraptor dove out of the sky at Hierro, it was knocked off-course by a green and brown shape that pummelled the bird to the ground. When the Staraptor fell unconscious, the Nuzleaf back-flipped off its prone form and snapped a quick salute to Alex before jumping back up into the air to spray the enemy combatants with another barrage of seeds._

 _As the Nuzleaf dropped, the Muk from before rose up from the street and snatched the grass type in its slime-covered hand. "Hey!" the Gunslinger roared. "Leave Geronimo alone, you rat bastard!" His gun discharged four shots, and patches of ice began to spread across the Muk's viscous form where the bullets hit. While the poison type thrashed and tried to break free of the spreading ice, Geronimo managed to wriggle out from the Muk's grasp and jump back into the fray. The Gunslinger fired off the two remaining frost bullets in his revolver at the ground near the thickest clusters of enforcers, trapping their legs in patches of thick, fast-forming ice._

 _Alex and Hierro fought back-to-back, covering each other's blind spots. Without the Gunslinger and Geronimo providing backup, they would have been quickly overwhelmed, and even with their help, it was a near thing. The Gunslinger's sleep bullets seemed far less effective on pokemon, with the larger specimens taking two or three shots to go down, and for every enforcer they dropped, their pokemon partners fought on even more fiercely. When the Gunslinger gave an exultant whoop, Alex wasn't sure what the man was celebrating. They were clearly no closer to victory._

 _"You hear that, you varmints?" the Gunslinger called. "The cavalry's coming! You better run if you know what's good for you!" Now that Alex was listening for it, he could dimly hear the clatter of hoof beats echoing between the buildings. The Gunslinger gestured with his left hand. "Clear out, partner! You don't want to get caught up in this!"_

 _Hierro began beating a path clear of the crowd of enforcers, and Alex hurried to follow him. The sound of hooves was closer now, and an instant later, a Rapidash charged down the street. The figure sitting astride the fiery steed held a lance held in their right hand, and their full suit of plate armor gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. "VERMIN!" the armored knight bellowed, their voice seeming to come from every direction at once. "IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIVES, QUIT THIS PLACE AT ONCE!"_

 _The enforcers turned their attention from Alex and Hierro to the new interloper. The Gunslinger shrugged. "Well, can't say we didn't warn you." He turned to the Cavalier. "About time you showed up."_

 _Though the Cavalier's eyes were hidden by their visor, Alex was fairly sure that the armored figure was glaring at the Gunslinger. "ONLY BECAUSE YOU CAN'T FIGHT YOUR OWN BATTLES." They swept their lance down and raised their shield. "ON GUARD!" The Cavalier tapped their heels against the flanks of their Rapidash and the horse sprang forward, quickly breaking into a gallop. The Cavalier's lance was blunted, but Alex watched as a Pangoro leaped at the armored fighter and was lifted off its feet by the sheer force of the Cavalier's thrust. Geronimo and the Gunslinger laid down cover fire as the Cavalier swept through the crowd of thugs. Alex and Hierro climbed up onto the raised plinth of a statue portraying a long-deceased member of Clarus City's moneyed elite mostly to stay out of the newcomer's way._

 _"FACE ME, FACE_ _DEATH_ _!" the Cavalier boomed as their Rapidash darted in quick looping circles through the mob, fire trailing it in long, elegant arcs. Alex could vaguely make out a blue-gray blur whipping through the vortex of flames around the Cavalier, but it moved too quickly for his eyes to track. Wherever the blur passed, humans and pokemon fell back with shallow lacerations on their chest and limbs. The Cavalier's lance rose and fell, driving the enemy host back until a Jellicent braved the fires and wrapped its tentacles around the weapon and wrenched it from the Cavalier's grasp. The blur set upon it almost instantly, forcing the water type to retreat, but not before the knight's lance had fallen out of reach._

 _But the Cavalier did not appear to be daunted. They raised their right hand skyward, and Alex saw that they wore no armor from their bicep to their fingertips. The blur slowed before racing towards the Cavalier's outstretched hand. A blue tassel wrapped around the Cavalier's arm, and Alex watched as the knight swept down with their Honedge in hand. "TWO CHANCES I HAVE GIVEN YOU!" the Cavalier's voice boomed again. "I AM NO LONGER INCLINED TO BE GENEROUS!" They lashed out with the spectral blade, giving their foes no quarter. Many of Pride's enforcers cut their losses and ran, disappearing into the dark alleys lining the street. The Gunslinger picked off several of the runners with his sleeping bullets. The Cavalier's Rapidash dashed through a gap and cut off the escape of the stragglers while Geronimo kept them pinned on the flank. The Cavalier's Honedge flashed as they swung forward. "NONE SHALL FLEE FROM ME! I'M NOT FINISHED WITH YOU YET!" Their Rapidash reared up and struck out at the Krookodile with its hooves. The Cavalier battered the ground type's nose with their shield. "COME, GUNSLINGER! LET US CRUSH THEM!"_

 _The Gunslinger sauntered forward and doffed his hat at Alex as he strolled past. "Why don't you go on ahead?" He fed six more bullets into his revolver and sighted down the barrel. "The Cavalier's going to suck all the fun out of this."_

 _Alex jumped down from the pillar. "Thanks for the help."_

 _"Anytime, partner." He pulled the trigger once, twice, three times. Three men dropped. He spun out the cylinder and slid in two more bullets. When he fired them, two piercing sirens split the air. "Yeeee-haw! Better leave some for me, Cavalier!"_

 _Alex left the Ridgewood heroes to their fight and slipped into an alleyway between two skyscrapers. He and Hierro emerged in what had once been an elegant cobbled square with a fountain or small statue in the middle, but it had been reduced to a smoldering crater, pieces of wrought iron wreckage strewn about on the intersecting streets. A police helicopter roared by overhead, and after the sound of the rotors faded, Alex heard sirens and the cries of pokemon echoing through the city streets. Hierro tugged Alex towards the older quarter of the city, where the buildings were shorter and they could try to find a rooftop to climb._

 _As they trekked through the labyrinthine streets of the upper west side of Clarus City, they took care to avoid fighting. The police and the Sins' enforcers battled on the streets, with several brave civilians and their pokemon joining the fight to protect their neighborhoods. Alex and Hierro were heavy with fatigue, and there were several times they nearly leapt into the fray, only to see reinforcements arrive an instant later. Alex hated running from a fight, but he was near the end of his stamina. He had gotten in over his head again, and if he knew that if he and Hierro had gotten lucky when the Gunslinger had arrived to bail them out. Sooner or later, the odds weren't going to come up in their favor._

 _Eventually, they reached a quiet street near the industrial quarter. Old tenement houses from two centuries ago were slowly sliding into disrepair, and had been since the steel plants had closed down nearly seventy years ago. The street had been torn up in an earlier battle, the concrete pocked with old potholes and new craters. Alex scanned up and down the streets for a fire escape or ladder, and was about to duck into an alleyway when he heard a clanking behind him._

 _"Where do you think you're going, hero? Don't you know you're in my way?"_


	9. Chapter 9

_CHAPTER 9_

 _Alex whirled and saw a man in combat fatigues standing astride a Metagross with a Bastiodon crouching next to him. The man's bare arms were covered in tattoos, and he wore heavy metal gauntlets on his hands. A scar on his lip twisted his face into a leering grimace. "You aren't the hero I was hoping to catch, but I have orders, kid. I see anyone who could be a spanner in the works, I take them out." He pounded his right fist against his left gauntlet. "And no one escapes the Iron Boyar."_

 _"Guess we have to do this the hard way, then." Alex settled into a defensive stance and saw Hierro square up beside him. Mentally, he cursed. Sergei Polovich, or as he styled himself, the Iron Boyar, had been a minor name in the criminal enterprises of Clarus City before Sloth's coup several years previously. He had controlled a small bit of territory on the upper west side, but had been largely unsuccessful in expanding his domain. When Sloth had turned the underworld on its head, Polovich had cut his losses and fell in behind Greed, quickly becoming one of her lieutenants and bolstering his status considerably. He was known for being implacable and no stranger to violence. Alex doubted that he and Hierro could do much to dent Polovich's steel types, but if he could create enough of a distraction, Hierro could go get help. Alex figured he could hold out on his own for a little while, provided Hierro didn't need to go far…_

 _"Boyar!" a voice boomed. Alex heard a hiss followed by a heavy thud, then a hiss again. "I've been looking all over for you. Too cowardly to come out and face me?"_

 _A suit of mechanized hydraulic armor, at least nine feet tall, stomped down the street, massive metal fists swinging at its sides. Polovich snarled a curse and beat his gauntlets together. "Hammer!" The Iron Boyar jerked his head to the side, and his Bastiodon lumbered forward. "I don't have time for you today."_

 _"You'd best pencil me in, because I'm not going anywhere." The hydraulic armor strode past Alex, and he saw the man operating the colossus. The Hammer stood in the cockpit, his torso exposed. His white beard was neatly trimmed, and his muscles rippled underneath his shirt as he worked the levers that controlled the suit. He shifted something, and the suit's fingers flexed before forming two heavy fists again. "It's time to see what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object!"_

 _The Hammer raised his right fist, and the hydraulic piston at his shoulder hissed as it propelled the arm forward. The Boyar's Bastiodon lunged forward and intercepted the blow while Polovich signaled for his Metagross to advance. The silver cross on the psychic type's faceplate began to glow, but two streaks of light shot out from the cockpit of the Hammer's suit. A Hariyama appeared and hurled the Bastiodon away, while a Conkeldurr swung one of its concrete pillars and knocked the Metagross off center. "Albrecht!" the Hammer bellowed. "Siegfried! Give them no quarter!" He turned to Alex. "Young man! Where has your fighting spirit gone? Just moments ago you were ready to charge into battle! Are you to leave this fight to a pensioner like me?"_

 _Alex twirled his batons and grinned. "Not chance, old man!" Hierro puffed up his feathers and leapt into battle with a shriek, Alex racing in just behind. Facing down a small army of Pride's enforcers was one thing, but going head to head with one of Greed's top lieutenants with the Hammer at his back was another matter entirely. He had a second wind now, and the opportunity to fight alongside one of Clarus City's original four heroes._

 _All day, Alex had felt himself pushed to the sidelines by the other heroes, more of a distraction and a hindrance than an equal. But now the Hammer himself was giving Alex a chance to prove his worth. He gritted his teeth and lashed out at Polovich, determined to make every blow count. "Yes!" the Hammer boomed as he wrenched a lamp post from the sidewalk and swung out at the Metagross. "Give it everything you've got! Don't hold anything back!"_

 _The Boyar used his metal bracers to parry Alex and Hierro's blows, fending off their assault with a speed that belied the weight of the gauntlets. "You don't know what you're dealing with, kid!" Polovich snapped. "Do you really think a whelp like you can best the Iron Boyar?"_

 _"I was asking myself the same question," Alex growled. He jumped up and delivered two swift kicks to Polovich's abdomen, making the man double over and stagger back three paces. "And I like my odds!"_

 _Polovich gestured to his Metagross. "Crush them."_

 _The abandoned cars scattered up and down the street began to rise up into the air as the Metagross's steel cross began to glow again. The cross flashed and the cars flew towards the heroes. Alex was about to retreat when the Hammer's Conkeldurr blew past him, twisting his entire upper body and swinging his heavy concrete blocks around. The fighting type deftly battered away the first three cars and shoved the block in his left hand through the hood of a fourth. The Hammer threw his lamp post away and caught a fifth in his mechanized hand. The Metagross tried to raise two more cars, only to have the Conkeldurr hurl his cement pillars and pin the automobiles to the ground. Meanwhile, the Hammer's Hariyama threw its considerable bulk behind a reckless blow and sent Polovich's Bastiodon sprawling. "Well done!" the Hammer cried, the joints of his suit hissing as he flexed its arms._

 _"Damn them," Polovich snarled, fumbling for something tucked into the back of his waistband. "Barrier, now!"_

 _A translucent wall sprang up, stretching from one side of the street to the other. The Hammer and his pokemon immediately rushed forward and began pounding against the barricade, their fists making the psychic barrier ripple. Alex could see tiny hairline fractures begin to form with each impact, but he couldn't be sure that they would break through before Polovich could pull off another trick. He watched where the ripples traveled, tracking the contour of the wall._

 _It seemed just like the barriers Pierre and his Mr. Mime would create, and those were finite. Depending on how much power the Metagross had, it was possible to get over it. Alex watched carefully as the psychic wall flashed with each successive blow and saw where the ripples stopped on the vertical plane. Almost fifteen feet up, but that was hardly insurmountable._

 _"I can get over this!" he called to the Hammer. "But I need a boost!"_

The Iron Boyar ignored them, pulling out a flare gun and aiming it skyward. A bright yellow flare shot up into the evening sky with a loud whistle, and Polovich grinned. The Hammer gritted his teeth and turned to his Conkeldurr. "Siegfried, get him over!" The fighting type nodded and cupped his hands. Alex took off at a sprint and heard Hierro's talons skittering across the pavement behind him. He sprang up into the Conkeldurr's palms, and the fighting type launched him high into the air. Hierro bounded up the Hammer's massive back, and the older hero raised his arm to give the flying type a better vantage point. As soon as Hierro reached the Hammer's fist, the hero deployed the hydraulic mechanism, shooting Hierro past Alex.

Spreading the wings of his suit wide, Alex dove at the ground and twisted at the last minute, bringing both of his metal batons to bear on Polovich. The Iron Boyar managed to raise his gauntlet in time to stop the first of Alex's blows, but his momentum carried him through, and the second baton collided with the side of Polovich's face. Alex heard a satisfying crunch as Polovich's nose broke, and the man swore. "Take it down, buddy!" Alex yelled.

Hierro shot down from the sky with a scream, driving his taloned foot into the Metagross's back. The force of the kick knocked the hulking steel type off balance, and the wall vanished. The Hammer and his pokemon barreled through, but Polovich only laughed, the sound strange and nasally now. "Idiots. The main event is just getting started!"

The sharp report of gunfire made Alex freeze. "So," an accented voice drawled. "My boyar has finally drawn out the Hammer. I knew it was only a matter of time."

The man in the mechanized suit turned towards the sound of the voice. "Young man, get behind me." His tone brokered no argument, and Alex hurried to comply. Peering around the bulk of the Hammer's suit, Alex saw Greed stride confidently down the street with several of her men, her half-shorn auburn hair plastered to her skull with sweat. Each member of her band was toting a belt-fed machine gun, and their pokemon loomed behind them.

Greed smirked. "You have been a thorn in my side for many years. Now that we have secured the primary objective, Sloth is letting me hunt you down." Her finger curled around the trigger. "And now that the star spangled moron is out of my way, there is nothing that will stop me!"

She and her men opened fired, and the Hammer threw up his armored fists in front of his face. The bullets pinged harmlessly against the armored suit, and Alex and Hierro pressed themselves up against the Hammer's legs. His Conkeldurr had retrieved his concrete blocks, and used them to form a hasty cover, while the Hammer's Hariyama moved with surprising grace and speed for its size to duck into an alleyway. "You can't protect yourself forever, old man!" Greed shouted above the roar of her machine gun. "Soon your armor will break and I will tear you apart!"

"Not if I have anything to say about it!"

Something dropped out of the sky and into the midst of Greed's forces. Alex heard shouts of dismay and the solid thumps of blows. A large bird of some kind shrieked, and Alex saw Greed's gun fall as the belt jammed. Someone laughed, a loud, deep laugh that came from deep in the diaphragm. "You almost got away from me, Red!" Captain Unova exclaimed as his Braviary battered her Ursaring. "Fortunately, I tracked you down. Hi, Hammer!"

"Captain Unova!" the Hammer cried. "Am I glad to see you!"

The man in blue and white spun on his heel and drove his elbow into the face of a man trying to approach him from behind for an ambush. "Have a taste of my Striaton Smash!" He whirled again, delivering a combination of punches to a second man. "And a Castelia Crusher!"

The chaos Captain Unova had sown with his arrival had thrown Greed's entire force into disarray, and it gave the Hammer the opening he needed. With a wild roar, the man charged forward with his Conkeldurr and crashed into their ranks, scattering the men still further. Sergei Polovich had used the confusion to limp back to his Metagross, and Alex saw him lean against the steel type's leg and hiss "Smash 'em to bits!"

An eighteen wheeler from a nearby loading bay rose up into the air and hovered over to the street. The Metagross's eyes had narrowed to slits as it focused its energies. With a screech like rending metal, the Metagross hurled the truck at Alex and his partner. Alex and Hierro could do nothing but watch in wide eyed horror as the truck arced towards them, knowing there was no way they could run out of the way in time.

Alex let out what was sure to be his last breath and closed his eyes. "Motherfu—"

"Be not afraid!"

Alex's eyes snapped open, which was his first surprise. The second was that a barefoot young man in a white collared shirt and jeans was hovering a foot off the ground in front of him, his right hand outstretched and the eighteen wheeler hanging suspended in the air. The man was obviously an exceptionally powerful esper to be able to hold at least thirty tons in the air without breaking a sweat. He slowly lowered his right index finger, returning the truck to the ground, and turned to meet Alex's eyes. His face brightened into a beatific smile. "I am Archangel. I'm here to help." He spun in the air and reached out his left hand towards Polovich's Metagross. With a flick of his wrist, the esper sent the heavy steel type flying two hundred yards down the street, where it crashed and lay motionless.

"Uh… thanks," Alex managed to say. Hierro looked to his trainer and nodded slowly.

Archangel's smile grew wider, making the skin at the corners of his eyes corners of his eyes crinkle. "All in a day's work. Shall we join the fight?" Somehow, a Kadabra had appeared at the esper's side.

"Right. Yeah. Let's do that." As Archangel began to glide away, Alex held up a hand. "Could you maybe give me a boost? My partner and I are best in the air."

"Of course! Brace yourself!"

Alex was flung into the air by an invisible force, and when he reached the peak of his arc, he spread his arms wide. He and Hierro dove into the crowd together, their wings spread. As they came level with the fighting, Alex lashed out with a series of spinning kicks and punches, attacking human and pokemon alike. Just before his feet touched the ground, he saw Archangel snap his fingers, flinging Alex skyward again. When he descended again, he whooped and knocked out a lunging Mienshao. "That was _so cool_!"

Captain Unova and Greed traded blows, and though Alex begrudgingly admitted the man's technique was impeccable, Greed's raw strength was starting to win out. The Hammer was unable to go to his aid, too preoccupied with fending off a Tyrantrum. Alex whistled to Archangel and pointed at Greed. The young man hurled a Hippowdon and Barbacle away with his telekinetic powers before flicking two fingers and giving Alex a psychic push towards the hulking woman. Alex slammed into Greed feet-first, knocking her off balance. She whirled on him, her face twisted into a demonic mask. "Little insect! I will crush you like the bug you are!" She brought her fists down, but before she could make contact, Hierro kicked out her left leg and sent her crashing to the ground.

The Hammer watched her fall as he held back the Tyrantrum's gnashing jaws. He threw back his head and laughed. "You see? We win every time! Stack the odds against us however you want, but I'll always bet on the heroes of Clarus City!"

"Then how about a gamble, old man?"

Another crowd of thugs advanced from the opposite side of the street. At the head of the mob was Kekoa Aukai, known to most as Wrath. The Alolan's Incineroar stalked by his side, and the anarchist grinned, spreading his arms wide. "I figured you couldn't hack it on your own, Anya. But the Hammer's a pain in my ass too, so I figured I'd give you a hand."

"Stay out of this, Wrath," Greed snarled. "This is _my_ fight!"

"And you've royally fucked it up. Time for me to step in." He cracked his neck and flicked open a switchblade. "Let's get 'em, boys!" His anarchists rushed forward with a roar, but as Alex watched, Wrath's shadow blurred and wavered, and a figure leapt from the darkness, his fist connecting with Wrath's chin.

"Not so fast!" the Phantom cried, his Dusknoir looming up behind him. "I'm not letting you slip through my fingers again, you bastard!"

Wrath's men began to turn to help their leader, but they stopped in their tracks when a loud guitar chord split the evening air. "Heroes of Clarus City!" a woman yelled. "Are you r-ready to _ROCK_?" From the alleyways and side streets lining the ravaged thoroughfare, the Phantom's army of ghost types rushed forth to engage the Sins' fighters, shrieking with savage delight as they swooped and dove through the evening air.

The Hammer hurled the Tyrantrum away and flexed his arms. "Like I said! Always bet on Clarus City!"

The sound of the guitar came again, freezing Wrath's reinforcements in place with a wall of sound. The Phantom continued to battle back and forth with Wrath, matching the man's knife attacks blow for blow with his cane. Alex saw the anarchist's Incineroar about to pounce and raced forward with Hierro. The two of them tackled the fire type before it could interfere. The Phantom whirled to dodge Wrath's telegraphed slash, his cape flaring. "You again?"

"We can help," Alex replied, ducking one of the Incineroar's claws. "You focus on Wrath. We'll do the rest."

The Phantom's lip curled. "Fine."

Alex nodded towards where he figured the guitar was coming from. "I thought you didn't do team ups?"

"Shut up. It's not the same thing." The Phantom turned his attention back to Wrath while Echo continued her auditory assault.

"Stand your ground against the storm

And dare to stand upright!

Charge! Fight! Onward and attack!

Army of the shadows, sworn

Defenders of the night!

Right here! Onward and attack!"

The ghosts tore through the crowd of thugs and enforcers while the other heroes rallied around the Hammer. The colossus of a man charged forward with a joy just as primal and destructive as the Phantom's legion, tossing foes aside with his hydraulic arms. Alex and Captain Unova battled hand to hand in his wake while Archangel and his Kadabra hurled their adversaries against the masonry. Hierro battled against Wrath's Incineroar, the two of them trading lightning-fast blows as they shrieked and snarled.

"When the night is cold and black,

We sing onward and attack

And we lead the storm of the wild!

Be the fiercest of the pack!

Screaming onward and attack!

We'll fight 'til our last breath!

Attack! Attack! _Onward and attack_!"

The Hammer swatted Greed's Ursaring aside and cheered. "Yes! Onward and attack! Don't falter now, boys! Onward!"

The street had descended into an all-out brawl, with the heroes surrounded on all sides by Greed and Wrath's top fighters. Captain Unova wiped a rivulet of blood from his nose. "I'm not one to be pessimistic, but this isn't looking good. We can keep taking them down, but we're outnumbered almost ten to one."

"We'll just have to fight on with ten times the power!" the Hammer bellowed, tossing aside a Boldore and whirling on a Haxorus. The heels of his suit dug into the pavement with enough force to leave craters in the concrete. He fended off the dragon with one hand while the he drew the other back, then shot it forward with a loud hiss, knocking the Haxorus back through the crowd. "Hawlucha Man! Watch your six!"

Alex spun in time to see an Arbok coil and pounce, its fangs dripping with a dark green venom. "Oh hell," Alex hissed as he dropped his weight and tried to dodge. The serpent sailed over his head but lunged again, and Alex just managed to avoid its snapping jaws. When he tried to land a blow on the Arbok's head, a Machoke seized him from behind and held him in place. Alex struggled against the lock and winced away from the Arbok's next lunge.

Two roars, one deep and bestial and the other mechanical, cut through the air. The crowd before Alex parted as a massive blue pokemon barreled through, a man on a motorcycle close on its heels. The Ronin spun his bike into a stop as his longsword slashed out, cleaving the Arbok in two as it launched through the air. The bisected halves of the snake fell to the ground as his Samurott slammed into the Machoke, breaking the fighting type's hold.

"Be more careful, kid," the Ronin growled as he swung off his motorcycle and switched his grip on his blade. His silver-gray hair had mostly come free of its ponytail and floated around his head in thin wisps. "I'm not always going to be there to save your ass."

"What took you so long?" Alex grunted as he battered down one of Greed's men.

"Midtown traffic is a bitch." The Ronin spun his blade around and plunged it into the chest of a man who was struggling to reload his machine gun before wrenching it out again and drawing a long slash across the chest of another enforcer.

They continued to fight on, but Captain Unova had not been wrong. For every opponent they took down, two more ran forward to take their place. All of the heroes were giving it their all, but their strength was beginning to flag. Even Archangel's incredible psychic powers weren't enough to decisively turn the tide. The air popped, like a small thunderclap, and where before there had been just empty air, four figures stood atop one of the tenement buildings. As quickly as they appeared, two vanished, leaving a woman in bullet-proof vest and a hulking figure in a suit of powered armor.

"So this is what's been holding you two up?" the man in the armor rumbled. "Just a few heroes?"

"They are remarkably tenacious, Mr. Braun!" Greed shouted back.

"Then maybe we ought to lend a hand." Sloth leapt down from the rooftop, and the force of his landing cracked the pavement. His female associate swung down after him, breaking her descent by vaulting nimbly from the windowsills. When she touched down, she flicked out two pokeballs, calling forth a Seviper and a Pyroar. Sloth flexed his fingers, and a Slaking appeared at his side.

"This is bad," Archangel muttered, and an instant later he and his Kadabra simply vanished.

"Damn coward," the Phantom hissed, throwing back his cape. A pack of Haunter jumped from the patch of shadow it created and rushed towards Wrath. "Echo! Turn it up!"

Alex saw the young woman with the red guitar from before standing between her Exploud and Loudred on the roof opposite from where Sloth and Pride had appeared, her platinum blonde hair blowing about her head. She gave the Phantom a thumbs up and quickly switched her chords while her pokemon opened their mouths wider to increase the power of their sonic assault.

"We're out of control

Without any fear of facing the madmen

Out of control!

Defying the lords of hell

We are…

Out of control!"

The staccato burst of lyrics segued into wailing guitar solo and created wall of sound kept the entire left flank of the Sins' forces pinned while the Hammer swept through the crowd. "Marcus Braun! I should have put an end to you a long time ago!" He raised both of his arms up and brought them crashing down over Sloth's head. The heavy powered suit moved with surprising dexterity, reaching up and stopping the strike cold. The Hammer's armor hissed as he applied more force, but Sloth was proving too mighty a foe. He broke off contact and surged forward, thrusters on the back of his legs giving him an extra boost of speed. The leader of the Sins reached up and wrenched off the left arm of the Hammer's armor with a squeal of rending metal and burst hydraulics. He flung the broken arm away as his Slaking leapt on the opposite side, striking the joints with its heavy fist.

Alex sprinted towards the Hammer, not sure what he could do to help but desperate to try something. Pride lashed out with a kick and sent Alex sprawling back. "Not so fast, kid." Alex jumped back to his feet and raced in again, heedless of her pokemon coming in from his flanks. Hierro screamed as he dropped out of the air and kicked her Pyroar away, while the Phantom and his Dusknoir jumped out of Alex's shadow and knocked the Seviper down.

"Thanks for that."

Alex saw the Phantom go red beneath his mask. "Don't get used to it."

Alex shrugged. "So about that team up?"

"Just this once. You go high."

Alex and the Phantom charged in at Pride. The woman cracked a long whip, tangling the Phantom's legs. As he fell, he flipped his cape aside and a Ghastly flew out with a scream, racing towards Pride's face. It provided enough of a distraction for Alex to bound up and over a wrecked car and leap at Pride. "Listen up, asshole!" He descended with a spinning kick and finished up with a punch as he landed, knocking Pride off her feet. "Clarus City's got a new protector! I'm the amazing Hawlucha Man!"

Pride got to her feet and snarled. "I'm going to make you regret you were ever born!"

The Hammer's pokemon had managed to fight through the crowd and free their trainer's arm from Sloth's Slaking, but the giant ape had already managed to cripple the limb. Sloth stalked in for the kill, his dull gray armor glinting in the evening sun. The Hammer furiously tried to work the controls of his own suit, but gave up in disgust. "It's no use, old man," Sloth said. "We've beaten you."

"Like hell you have." The Hammer reached behind him in the cockpit and drew out a sledgehammer. "How do you think I got my name?" He flicked several switches and the restraints keeping him in the open cockpit retracted. He jumped down to the street and hefted the heavy club. "Looks like I'm going to beat you down the old fashioned way!"

Sloth's arm swung down, only to be knocked away by the sledgehammer. The old man's biceps bulged as he followed through on the swing and brought it back around, managing to dent the kingpin's chest plate. His Hariyama held the attention of the Slaking while his Conkeldurr rushed in to distract Sloth. Sloth hurled the fighting type away while the Hammer rained blows on the armor until Sloth reached down and seized the Hammer's left arm in his fist. The old man winced in pain, and Sloth flung him away. His Hariyama pushed the Slaking away and sprinted to intercept his trainer, catching him out of the air and sliding to a stop across the pavement.

Sloth turned on the Ronin and Captain Unova, but before he could attack, a blast of red-hot plasma scorched the street in front of him. Blaziken Man descended on a pillar of flame, followed by Volcarona Mask and their partner pokemon. Blaziken Man blasted Sloth with several more fiery pulses. "Try picking on someone your own size!"

Volcarona Mask dropped down in the middle of Greed's men, spinning her metal quarterstaff. Captain Unova cheered as Echo played harder. "These guys have been going easy on you!" Volcarona Mask cried. "But that changes now!" Her partner pokemon bathed the combatants with scalding wind as the young woman pirouetted through the throng, hurling flash grenades to blind her opponents before dispatching them with a few quick blows from her staff.

Alex took a breath as Pride retreated and glanced over at Hierro. "That's Blaziken Man. Oh Arceus, that's _Blaziken Man_!"

Archangel descended to float beside Alex, his Kadabra appearing at his side. "In the flesh." At Alex's gaping stare, the young man shrugged. "I thought it was time to bring in the heavy hitters."

Jiro Sasaki's Blaziken sprinted by, turning it into a running start for a leaping kick that knocked Sloth's Slaking flat. The man himself strode forward confidently, his glowing metal suit clanking. "Thank you for holding them," he said to Alex as he unleashed another barrage against Sloth. "The heroes of Clarus City never disappoint." He turned to Alex, Archangel and the Phantom. "I have something that might be able to disable Sloth's armor, but I need time to charge it. You've seen how powerful he is, and I can't ask you to engage—"

But Alex was already off and running. Hierro swooped down beside him, and together they jumped at Sloth. They managed to catch the kingpin by surprise, with Hierro landing a solid kick to Sloth's center of mass. Alex jumped after his partner, beating around Sloth's head with his batons. Sloth lashed out at them, but Alex and Hierro were light on their feet, ducking out of the way. The Phantom's Dusknoir appeared behind Sloth and delivered a sharp punch to the man's head. Though Sloth's helmet absorbed most of the force of the blow, it gave Alex and Hierro enough time to renew their assault.

This time, Sloth managed to seize Hierro. He lifted the Hawlucha in the air in his right hand and clenched his fist. Hierro cried out in pain, and Alex lashed out in pure unbridled rage. "You bastard!" he screamed. "Let him go!" He jumped up and wrapped his legs around Wrath's torso, battering the man's armored skull with his batons. Alex glared into the glowing eye slits of Sloth's suit as metal rang against metal. He felt Sloth's metal fingers close around his waist and pull, but he didn't unclench his legs, continuing his attack until Sloth wrenched him away. Alex screamed again and tried to attack the gauntleted hand, but to no avail. Sloth flicked his wrist and flung him away.

Alex saw the brick buildings rushing up as Blaziken Man's gauntlet flashed. Just before he hit the wall, he felt something seize his waist and pull. The force jerked his neck forward.

And then everything went black.


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

Alex rose to consciousness with a gasp, as though surfacing from underwater. He thrashed for a moment, kicking the pristine white sheet off his legs, where it fell beside the narrow hospital bed. A heart monitor beside him began to beep rapidly, and Hierro stirred from the stool beside Alex's bed to place a clawed hand on his partner's chest and force him to lie still. Hierro stared intently into Alex's eyes, willing him to be calm, and Alex felt his breathing relax as his heart rate lowered.

The sunlight streaming in through the two story floor-to-ceiling windows bathed the room with light. Through the large glass panes, Alex could see the midtown Clarus City stretching out below him. His hospital bed stood in the middle of the bank of windows, connected to a heart monitor and IV drip. The rest of the room was done up in chic modern décor, with leather sofas, an electric fireplace, a titanium and steel workbench, and what Alex could only assume were expensive minimalist paintings.

Alex tried to ignore the pain in his ribs and struggled to sit up, only to have Hierro flick a switch on a small console, raising the upper part of his bed into a sitting position. Alex nodded his thanks and surveyed the room "Where the hell are we?"

An elevator at the far side of the room swished open and a man and woman stepped out. The woman wore a modest black dress and heels, her hair held in a sharp up-do with not a single strand out of place. Her makeup was minimal and rather severe. The man wore a collared shirt and charcoal gray slacks with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Though his beard was well-trimmed and he gave the appearance of unflappable professionalism, Alex could see deep dark circles under his eyes.

"You're awake, thank Arceus," the man said, pulling over a stool from the workbench. Alex winced as its metal legs dragged across the floor.

"What's going on? Where am I? How long was I out?"

The woman continued walking past Alex, her heels clicking rhythmically. "You've been unconscious for fifty-odd hours. And you're in Sasaki Tower, obviously." She sighed. "Pretty much the only place spared from this clusterfuck."

"Easy, Takeda," the man said. "He's still going to be disoriented. We agreed we'd take it a little at a time." He turned to Alex. "Thank you for all your help, Mr. Alvarez. What you did was incredibly brave, but it was also incredibly dangerous."

Alex jerked as he remembered his attack on Sloth and turned to his partner. "Are you all right? You aren't hurt?"

The man placed a hand on Alex's arm. "Your Hawlucha is fine. With your help I was able to temporarily disable Sloth's armor, and we had the upper hand for a little while."

"You disabled…? Does that mean… Oh Arceus, you're Blaziken Man!"

Jiro Sasaki smiled. "I am."

"What happened to me?"

"Archangel managed to catch you, but the force of Sloth's throw knocked you out. You had a mild concussion, and when the fight was over I brought you back here so you could recover. Aside from that, you had minor cuts and bruises. You were very lucky."

"What about the others? What happened to the Sins?"

"The police arrived shortly after you were knocked out, but Sloth managed to get his systems back online. We apprehended plenty of their men, but the four Sins all managed to get clear. The Phantom and Volcarona Mask pursued, but they lost them. The other heroes fell back with me to regroup."

"And the Hammer?"

"He was captured." The woman, Takeda, turned from the windows. "Greed grabbed him in the confusion."

Seeing Alex's stricken look, Jiro held up a hand. "To the best of our knowledge, he's still alive. The Sins have holed up in Nimbus Tower, and they're holding him there."

"Along with plenty of other hostages," Takeda added. "Commissioner Bright, the mayor, the president of our board of directors…"

Jiro Sasaki nodded. "It seems that the chaos the Sins created was just a ruse so that they could kidnap the elite of Clarus City, hobbling the bureaucracy and the police. From what we can gather, their erratic operations the past few months have allowed them to seize control of several notable pieces of property and other assets throughout the city. The property allowed them to place the bombs that crippled the infrastructure, and once we were preoccupied trying to contain that, they went after their ultimate goal."

"So now what do we do?" Alex asked. "Hierro and I, we want to help." The Hawlucha nodded and turned to Jiro.

Jiro inclined his head. "For now, stay put. Volcarona Mask and I are convening a meeting of all available heroes shortly where we'll plan our next move. We know where the Sins are, and for now the police have them pinned. But if we act too hastily, we could jeopardize our chance."

Takeda dropped a canvas gym bag at the foot of Alex's bed. "I took the liberty of getting a change of clothes from your apartment, Mr. Alvarez." She glanced over at Jiro. "I also expensed him a mop and a vacuum cleaner." Before Alex could formulate a reply, Takeda had crossed the room to the elevator and disappeared to another floor.

"Noriko doesn't mean to be so brusque," Jiro said. "She really does mean well. Sorry if she ruffled your feathers."

"No, it's fine," Alex said. "Wait. How did you know where I lived? How do you know my name?"

Jiro smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry to have outed you. I understand how important a secret identity can be. But I needed to figure out who you were so that we could look up your medical history and make sure that we alerted any family in case things went south. I hope you understand? If it makes you feel any better, the only people who know outside of Noriko and myself are her brother and my Blaziken."

Alex shrugged. "And you trust them?"

"With my life. Your secret is safe."

"Then I'll live with it." Alex shifted to a more comfortable position and looked down at his hospital robe. "Where's my suit?"

Jiro walked over to his workbench and picked up the red and white garment. He silently passed it over to Alex, who ran it through his hands. A large rent had been torn in the right wing, and there were various tears along the material. "No," Alex whispered. "No, this can't be happening. The whole design is compromised. I'd have to start from scratch. I don't… I can't afford to make another one." He felt his throat close up. "I can't be Hawlucha Man anymore."

"That may not be entirely true," Jiro said. He hefted a silver briefcase off the workbench and carried it to the hospital bed. "See, when I get stressed, I like to keep my hands busy. Repairs to my armor are mostly automated now, so after what happened three days ago, I was kind of a wreck. But after I saw what happened to your suit, well, I couldn't help myself." He set the case on Alex's lap and pressed the clasps. "I tried to stay as loyal to your original specs as I could, but I couldn't resist adding in a few little tricks of my own."

Alex opened the case and gasped. He ran his hands over the black and red material inside. "It's so light! How did you…?"

"Carbon nanofibers. It should be more durable than your old one, but with far less weight. It won't be stopping any bullets, but it should protect you from knives, and it's mostly heat resistant and non-conducive. We ran some simulations, and you should be able to fly just as well as before." Alex slowly removed the new suit from the case. The black and red material ran smoothly through his hands, and he tugged at the wings beneath the arms. Jiro watched as Alex inspected it. "I opted to go with the black and red color scheme that some Hawlucha have. I figured it would be better than your red and white, since you're doing most of your work at night. If you prefer the old colors, I can make a new one…"

"No, no, this is great." Alex tugged at the wing beneath the right arm. "This seems smaller than my design. Will it really be able to glide?"

"The nanofibers are elastic. They'll expand when you need them to. Check out the mask." When Alex held up the black and green headpiece, Jiro leaned over and tapped the lenses over the eyes. "I installed night vision, infrared and heat sensors. And," he reached into the case and drew out two metal batons. "I'm particularly proud of these." Alex turned one over in his hand, feeling the solid heft of the metal, roughly the same density as his old pair. His fingers found a switch on the handle. "What's this?"

Jiro grinned. "Stun feature. I know electric types aren't really your gimmick, but I thought it would be a good idea to have some extra power behind it. It's not a particularly strong current, but I wouldn't advise putting your hand on the end."

"This is… it's incredible." Alex shook his head. "I really can't accept this. It's got to cost a fortune."

"Don't think of it as a gift," Jiro said. "If it makes you feel any better, call it an investment."

"But why me?"

"Because I saw you throw down with some of the most fearsome and deadly criminals in Clarus City without a second's hesitation. Because I see the potential you have to become a truly great hero. I've read your file, Alex."

"I'm not anything special. I'm just a broke student from Avenbrooke."

"Nothing special? Are you crazy?" Jiro shook his head. "You're a three time regional mixed martial arts champion. You could have been a professional gymnast, but you gave it all up to go to AIT on a full merit scholarship. And because that's not enough, you're an engineering prodigy too. For Arceus's sake, you built a functioning wingsuit on… what's your R & D budget?"

Alex blushed and looked down at his hands. "Whatever's left over after rent and instant noodles."

"Are you freaking kidding me?" Jiro exclaimed. "You built _that_ on scraps? I mean, if you had access to a real lab, with the resources of one of my engineers…" He shook his head. "Anyway, sit tight for now. Like I said, we're arranging a conference with the other heroes we can reach to talk over what to do about all of this." Jiro rose and walked over to the elevator. "Hierro knows where the food is, he can get something for you if you think you can keep it down. I'll be back soon." The elevator doors hissed open, and Jiro shot off to another floor.

Alex put a hand on his stomach as it growled, and Hierro jumped down from his stool. The Hawlucha walked over to a small stainless steel refrigerator and opened a cabinet nearby. He quickly prepared two peanut butter sandwiches and fetched a fruit-flavored sports drink for Alex. He hoisted the tray up onto the hospital bed and nudged Alex aside so that he could sit next to him.

Alex took the sandwich in one hand and ran a hand through the feathers on his partner's head. "I'm sorry to make you worry about me," he said. "If things were the other way around, I know I'd be a nervous wreck." Hierro tore off a bit of his own sandwich and cooed. They stayed like that for some time, until Alex felt his eyelids grow heavy.

When he woke up again, the bed had moved several feet and now rested in a patch of shadow. Hierro had moved it out of the sun while Alex slept, and by the angle of the light, Alex guessed he had been out for at least an hour or two. The hissing of the elevator doors had roused him, and he saw Jiro and Noriko enter the loft again. "Think you can walk?" Jiro asked.

Alex slowly lowered himself out of bed and massaged his legs. "Yeah, I'll be good."

"Then you'd best get dressed. We're heading uptown."

Alex hurriedly pulled on the t-shirt and jeans Noriko had gotten from his apartment and went over to the elevator. He felt his stomach drop as the elevator descended, moving rapidly down the floors of Sasaki Tower before slowing as it reached the sub-basement. They emerged in a nearly empty parking garage, and Jiro led Alex and Hierro to an unassuming black sedan parked nearby. His Blaziken and another man waited for them there.

Jiro smiled when he saw his partner. "Ready to go, Masakado?" The fire type nodded and popped open the passenger side door, folding himself into the seat. The other man inclined his head to Alex.

"You must be Alvarez. Nice to meet you." He extended his hand. "I'm Takeda. Noboru Takeda."

Noriko saw Alex's glance. "My younger brother, and your driver today."

Noboru smiled. "Well, you do keep trying to get me out of the lab." He slid into the driver's seat while Alex, Jiro and Hierro piled into the back. Noboru waved to Noriko as he swung the car around and headed for the exit ramp. He caught Alex's eye in the rearview mirror. "Jiro says you're at AIT, right? I was a Clarus Tech guy myself, but I gotta admit you guys have a better campus."

"You mentioned you work in a lab?"

Noboru nodded. "I'm a chemist here. Mostly I'm working in the pharmaceutical division, but I dabble in some other stuff in my spare time."

"The Takedas are some of my oldest friends," Jiro explained. "When I was starting Sasaki Industries, I wouldn't have been able to do it without their help."

"Always a sweet talker," Noboru said as he turned the car out of Sasaki Tower and onto the main thoroughfare.

Alex stared out the window, where city crews were already working to repair the damage caused by the Sins' bombs. Workers in hard hats and reflective vests guided their rock and ground type pokemon to fill in the craters as cement mixers stood by. Fighting and fire types worked alongside welders on damaged municipal buildings. "Aren't they worried about being attacked?" Alex said.

"It's always possible, but it's not likely," Jiro replied. "We've mostly pushed back the Sins and their high ranking lieutenants to a couple blocks around the Nimbus Building. Any of their rank and file members are scattered, and the police are out in force. There have been a few flare ups while you were out, but nothing the police couldn't handle."

Noboru flashed a badge of some kind at a police checkpoint, and they were waved through. The driver sucked at his teeth. "We're going to have to take the side streets, Jiro. The expressway is still shot to hell."

"Where are we headed anyway?" Alex asked.

"Volcarona Mask is holding the meeting uptown, away from most of the damage. Try and relax a bit, it'll be a while before we get to Forbes Manor."

Alex's eyes went wide. "Forbes Manor? You mean Volcarona Mask is _Isabelle Forbes_?" But as he said it aloud, it started to make sense. Volcarona Mask seemed to have a large array of varying types of technology in her arsenal, but she didn't seem to have anything in the way of technical know-how. Having access to the inexhaustible resources of the Forbes Corporation would allow her to supplement her acrobatics with the latest in non-lethal weapons technology. Not to mention, she needed to have the resources to support and care for her Volcarona, so she obviously came from some means.

And after what the Sins had done to the Forbes family several years ago, she had a solid motive for becoming a hero…

"Yeah, that's Izzy. We're pretty sure the Sins have figured it out by now, but one of the perks of having virtually infinite money is you can afford a really good home security system." Jiro laughed. "You wouldn't know from looking, but Forbes Manor more secure than most military installations. Whenever we meet with other heroes, we do it there."

The steel and glass canyons of the city gave way to upper class residential neighborhoods where the Sins' destruction was less evident. They had concentrated most of their attack on the commercial heart of Clarus City, striking primarily at the bastions of industry in the financial and manufacturing districts. Most neighborhoods far from the city center had been spared the worst. Eventually, the upscale brownstones and terraces receded as they reached the sprawling estates of the city's moneyed elite on Clarus City's northern outskirts.

Noboru stopped in front of a large iron fence accentuated by intricate whorls in the metal. The artistry of the barrier did little to hide how thick it was, and small metal nodes along its length subtly hinted that it was electrified. Noboru held up an identification card to a panel set into one of the pillars alongside the entranceway, and slowly rolled open. He eased the car up the tree-lined drive and parked just in front of the pillared veranda. Noboru popped the locks and swung out of the car, winking to Jiro as he leaned against the hood.

"I'll wait around out here. No need for me to get involved in the hero stuff." He dug in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and lit one behind his cupped hand.

Jiro, Alex, and their partner pokemon ascended the steps to the manor. Alex followed Jiro, who seemed to know exactly where he was going. They passed through several large, open rooms, decorated in a more opulent classical style than the room Alex had woken up in several hours earlier. Crystal chandeliers dangled from the ceiling, and the art adorning the walls was several centuries old. Jiro led Alex to a wood-paneled room lined with glass cases and bookshelves of varying heights that seemed to be exactly in the center of the first floor. He tapped his knuckles against the doorframe.

The two women sitting within looked up as Jiro entered. The young woman in a white sundress was sprawled on one of the antique leather couches, and she lazily raised her head. "Hey Jiro. I don't want to play hostess yet, so just like, grab some food or whatever? Cool?" She glanced over at Alex. "Oh, you're the Hawlucha guy, right? How's your head, dude?"

"Honestly, it's like a hangover on steroids."

"Ugh, brutal." She fiddled with a remote on the table in front of her, pointing it at three monitors on the wall. Alex waited for her to say something more, but it seemed like the girl was done. The other woman gracefully rose to her feet and swept across the room, her red and gold sari swishing. She laid a hand on Alex's arm, and Alex caught a whiff of jasmine and saffron that seemed to cling to her caramel-colored skin.

"Don't let Isabelle's lack of social graces put you off," the woman said, leading him over to a table pushed against the far wall. "She gets like this when she's just woken up. Please, help yourself to something to eat. You must be exhausted after what you've been through."

Alex tried without much success to gather his wits about him. "Uh… yeah. Uh."

"Oh, of course, I haven't introduced myself! And we only met for but a moment the other day!" the woman said with an expansive gesture. "I am Lakshmi Kandhari. And you, Hawlucha Man, need very little introduction."

Alex could only nod at the Dryad. "Alex. I'm, uh, Alvarez. Alex Alvarez. That's me."

Lakshmi hid a dainty laugh behind her hand and handed Alex a plate. She selected several sandwiches from a spread across the table and piled his plate with fruit before getting food for herself. Alex walked in a daze to a couch perpendicular to Isabelle's and picked up a pesto and arugula sandwich. Hierro hopped up next to him and snatched something with meat in it. Jiro and Masakado sat off to one side, tapping away on a tablet, while Lakshmi returned to her chair on the far side of the room.

A matronly woman cleared her throat in the hallway. Izzy waved her hand lazily above her head. "Send 'em in, Vivi. Just keep 'em coming." She made what appeared to be an attempt to sit up before flopping back down on the couch and pointing. "Food's over there, dude."

Alex glanced up and dropped his sandwich. "Archangel!"

The young man's face lit up with a smile as he strode forward, his feet leaving the ground as he glided over to Alex. "Please, when I'm not working, call me Joshua." He eagerly pumped Alex's hand, though he had not yet touched down on the floor. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you're all right! I was so worried when I realized you were unconscious. In the heat of the moment, I didn't think to check my power and—"

"You don't have to apologize for saving my life!" Alex said with a laugh.

Joshua sat down beside Hierro. "You're sure you're both fine?" He turned his smile on the flying type. "You were terribly brave out there." Hierro puffed up his chest and began to preen. Joshua glanced over at Alex. "It's really awful about the Hammer. We'll have to do everything we can to get him back."

The woman from before, Vivi, appeared in the doorway again. "Captain Unova has landed on the south lawn. He should be joining you momentarily, Ms. Isabelle."

Isabelle groaned and looked over at Jiro. "Dude, why'd you have to invite Captain Loudmouth?"

Jiro glanced up from his tablet. "Captain Unova is as much of a hero as anyone else in this room. He earned his place here, same as all of us." Isabelle rolled her eyes and groaned again. She looked as though she was about to say more when the shadows in the corner of the room blurred, and a man stepped out from what had once been empty space. The Phantom was dressed in his full hero costume, mask in place. He inclined his head to the room.

"Eddy," Isabelle said, curling her lips into something that wasn't quite a smile.

"Izzy," the Phantom replied, and Alex could see him raising his eyebrow behind the mask. He swept across the conference room and fell into a chair near Alex and Joshua.

A moment later, Captain Unova strode through the door, also in his signature blue and white striped suit. "Hello! I hope I'm not too late?"

"Think nothing of it," Lakshmi said with a lazy wave of her wrist.

Jiro stood and used his tablet to send something to the large television screens that lined the room. The monitors flickered, showing a map of midtown, a red circle drawn around the block with Nimbus Tower. "I think that's all of us for now," he said, fixing a small microphone to his collar. "Echo, Gunslinger, Cavalier, do you copy?"

Two green circles appeared on the top right corner of the monitor. "Loud and clear, partner," the Gunslinger drawled through the connection. "The Cavalier's havin' a lie down at the moment, but I'll brief 'em on anything new and interesting later."

"Sounds good, Gunslinger. Echo, what about you?"

A crackle of static interference came through the speakers. "I-I hear you," a woman's voice said. "I'm j-j-just keeping m-my mic on mute in c-case something happens. Feedback, y-y-you know?"

"Good plan."

Joshua leaned over to Alex. "We've all taken turns standing guard with the police perimeter around Nimbus Tower for the last few days to keep the Sins pinned down. Those three are all onsite now."

Alex nodded and waited for Jiro to go on. "For the last sixty hours, the Sins have forced us into a stalemate. Not only have they captured the Hammer, but they are holding Commissioner Bright and Mayor Lynden, along with various other Clarus City elites. Dorian Westfield, the chairman of the board of Sasaki Industries and my personal friend, was kidnapped from his home. Volcarona Mask has also confirmed to me that Ms. Emily Sage, the CFO of the Forbes Corporation, was also taken."

"The CEO of Harcourt Industries is being held too," the Phantom said. "So I've been told."

Jiro nodded to him and then turned to the room. "As you can see, the situation is not ideal. The Sins have made it clear that if we move against them, they will kill their hostages. I've gathered us all here today because it seems the only way to effectively combat the Sins is to remove the hostages from the equation entirely. To do that, we would have to infiltrate Nimbus Tower unseen. Phantom, Archangel, both of you have pokemon partners that allow for some degree of teleportation, yes?"

Archangel nodded, but the Phantom folded his arms. "Archangel, I don't know about you, but for Gregor and I to take people along, we need to be physically touching them. That limits how many people I can bring along at once. Should I assume that you have a similar limitation?"

"Yes, unfortunately."

"Right. And don't we estimate that the Sins have something in excess of forty hostages?"

Jiro sighed. "Yes, that's correct."

"I can take maybe four people at once," the Phantom said. "Archangel, what about you?"

"Yes, four or five would be about all I could take as well."

"So between us, that's only eight or nine people per trip. It would take at least five or six trips to bring everyone out, and I don't think the Sins will give us that kind of time once they notice their only leverage vanishing from under their noses."

"We can all do basic math, Eddy," Isabelle said. "If you have a point, like, get to it?"

"I'm saying that if it was as simple as us teleporting in and removing the hostages, you all would have found a way to do that already. So there's more to this plan, right?"

Jiro glanced at Lakshmi and nodded. "We'll need to work in three teams. The first group, the majority of us, would remain outside the tower, consolidating our resources with the police to draw the Sins' focus while the other two teams maneuver into place. The second team, should you agree to it, would be the Phantom and Archangel, who would work to evacuate the hostages as quickly as possible. The third team would be teleported inside the tower beforehand to distract the Sins from inside and give the second team time to work. This would be the most dangerous assignment, and I can't ask any of you to undertake it. I'll lead it myself, and if need be, Masakado and I will go in alone."

"Listen partner," the Gunslinger drawled. "That's all real brave and everything, but my skillset ain't suited to hallways and blind corners. I'm going to have to stay out here. I can't really speak for the Cavalier, but closed spaces and Rapidash don't generally mix."

A burst of static punctuated Echo's words. "I'm n-no good up c-c-close either. I ought t-to stay out here."

Lakshmi nodded. "My grass types and I can do our best work mobilizing outside the tower. It could inflate our numbers on the ground."

"I'll do what I have to do," the Phantom said. "But you all need to understand that Gregor needs shadows for his teleportation to work. If there's too much light around the hostages, I won't be able to reach them in time." He sighed and adjusted his mask. "But I'll deploy my ghost types to run interference outside either way."

"I'll do everything I can to get the hostages out," Joshua said. "Phantom, perhaps my Kadabra and I could carry in something that casts a shadow, to make things easier for you?"

The Phantom nodded. "We'll talk."

Alex looked around the room and then glanced at Hierro. His Hawlucha nodded, and Alex cleared his throat. "Jiro, I've got your back."

"Are you sure, Hawlucha Man?"

"Yes. Hierro and I won't be able to do much good outside, but we can handle close combat."

"I'm going too," Isabelle added. "Aethon will have to stay with the first group, but I don't need him to fight."

"Count me in." Captain Unova grinned. Isabelle scowled but held her tongue as the Unovan hero laughed. "Between the four of us, the Sins won't know what hit them!"

"I really can't overstate the danger of this—"

"I eat danger for breakfast," Isabelle snapped. "And I wash it down with a side of impossible odds! We're going to go in there and kick the Sins' asses and free the Hammer and Ms. Sage and everyone else." She smirked. "But like, if you don't think you can handle the heat or whatever, just say so. I'll go in and bust them up myself."

Captain Unova jerked his thumb at her. "What she said."

Alex nodded. "Yeah. We can do this."

Jiro allowed himself a small smile. "I'm sorry I doubted you. All right, the best time to strike will be in the middle of the night, which doesn't give us long to prepare. If we mobilize now we could—"

He was cut off by a burst of static. "S-Sorry to interrupt but uh…" Echo left the connection open, and Alex heard her Exploud bellowing in the background. "Uh, Gunslinger, d-do you see this?"

The Gunslinger swore. "Who is that? What the hell is that woman doing? She's going to blow this all to pieces!"

"What's going on?" Jiro demanded. The Phantom was already on his feet and running for the corner he had stepped out of. His Dusknoir appeared, and the two of them vanished while the room descended into chaos. "Gunslinger, Echo, come in! What is happening down there?"

"Some crazy broad's walked right up through the front door of the tower!" the Gunslinger shouted. "Ah, hell, we got gunshots! This is going to be ugly."

Jiro turned to the others. "All right heroes, suit up. We've got to contain this."

Isabelle was bounding out of the room. "Jiro, I'll get the helicopter going. Head out back once you've got your armor on!"

"See you there," Joshua said to Alex before his Kadabra appeared and whisked him away.

Lakshmi sighed as she got to her feet. "The best laid plans of Mienfoo and men…"


	11. Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

 _Some time earlier…_

Julia Richelieu crossed her legs and lifted her glass of wine to her mouth. Her lipstick left a burgundy stain on the rim, and she savored the taste of the vintage on her tongue, the cask having been liberated from the cellar of an exclusive upscale restaurant in the confusion of the preceding days. The rest of the Sins lounged around what had once been an executive boardroom near the top floor of the Nimbus Building.

The preceding few hours had been hectic. Once she and Sloth had beaten back the heroes on the upper west side, they had retreated to Nimbus Tower to regroup, much as she assumed the heroes were doing as well. Though the police seemed to think they had them pinned here like a treed Meowth, Julia knew that was far from the truth. Lust and his Xatu had been teleporting the Sins all around Clarus City's boroughs for the past three days so that they could position their men and consolidate their hold on the city. So long as they were not seen outside the tower, the police force would be none the wiser.

They were all waiting on Sloth's next orders, but Marcus Braun seemed content to let them linger around the tower for the time being, only dropping cryptic hints as to the next stage of their plan.

Julia had to give Bran the credit he was due; their plot had gone over marvelously well. For months, the Sins had appeared to act erratically, striking seemingly random targets, occasionally in broad daylight. However, the attacks had all been sleight of hand, designed to draw the focus of the police and the self-proclaimed heroes, forcing them to step in to halt the showy displays while the Sins gathered up the property rights and assets needed to truly throw the city off its axis. They had secured the rights to several key sites, and that allowed them to access the sprawling network of old sewers under Clarus City to plant their bombs with no one the wiser.

It had all come together brilliantly, bringing the city to its knees while they instilled terror in the citizens and hobbled the police force. Braun had a brilliant tactical mind and terrifying physical prowess even without his powered armor, though Julia could not help feeling that his tendency to grow indolent after a successful heist was more of a liability than the other Sins would let themselves admit. But Braun got results, and she was nothing if not loyal. Braun had come to power in a desperate and bloody struggle for ascendancy in Clarus City's underworld, and he had bested her with ease. Though he would have been well within his rights to have killed her right then, he had offered her a chance to join her strength to his and to rise at his side as his trusted lieutenant. Julia had agreed, and had never been given reason to second guess her choice.

Together, she and Braun had brought order to Clarus City's underworld, and he ruled with an iron fist. She could respect that, and he, in turn, respected her. Sloth had very little in terms of manpower that answered directly to him. Outside of the six other Sins themselves, he had a few cells of men from his original gang, but he preferred to delegate operations to his immediate subordinates, only dealing with the organization on a macro level. It was Julia's keen business acumen that had helped them establish a solid power base as the dust of the coup began to settle and cemented her as the strong right arm of the Sins' enterprise. Braun was the brain, she was the scalpel, and between the two of them, they could exert enough control over Aukai, who was the stick they used to beat down any opposition. Once they had all of that, the rest of the Sins had fallen in line easily enough.

Braun, sprawled out on a large leather sofa across the room, caught her eye and turned his lips up in a lazy smile. He held a cut crystal glass of scotch with his large fingertips, slowly shaking the tumbler to make the amber liquid circle the base. He tilted it ever so slightly in her direction and raised it to his lips. Julia inclined her wineglass towards him, acknowledging his acknowledgement, and took a sip of her own.

The small, reedy man sitting on the other end of Braun's sofa nodded to her and fingered the stem of his martini glass, careful not to disturb Braun's Slaking, who was sprawled at his feet. James Stocks, known more by his reputation as Lust, was an utterly nondescript man whose only distinguishing feature was the varied and somewhat garish collection of rings he wore. He had the uncanny skill to blend into the background of any surroundings, a useful skill when one traded in secrets and blackmail like Lust did. Julia was sure that he knew enough to take any member of the Sins down, and though plenty of her other associates were far more intimidating physically, she was reasonably sure that Stocks had the potential to be one of the most dangerous men in Clarus City.

Between her chair and the sofa, Kekoa Aukai and Anya Petrovna sat on either side of a small circular table, their hands locked together in an arm-wrestling match. Veins bulged on Aukai's forehead as he strained with all his strength to budge Petrovna's hand even an inch, with no apparent effort exerted on her behalf. For her part, Greed gave an exaggerated yawn and waved over one of her men standing at the fringes of the room. "Boris!" she called. "More vodka!" Then she turned to Aukai and smirked. "You are being rather depressing. Maybe use both hands to give me a challenge?"

Aukai snarled with wordless rage while Petrovna casually threw back a shot and laughed. "You do not want my generous offer? All right." With a casual twitch of her arm, she slammed Aukai's hand down on the table. "I win again! That makes me four for four, yes?"

"This is unacceptable!" Wrath snapped. He dropped his elbow on the table again and flexed his fingers. "One more round."

Petrovna waved her hand dismissively. "It will not change anything. Come, have some vodka." Aukai begrudgingly accepted a shot, and the two of them drank together. Julia rolled her eyes at the two rowdiest members of the Sins, but privately she was glad that they were taking out their pent up energy on each other rather than driving the rest of them up the wall. Eva Muller, better known as Gluttony, chortled and elegantly raised a small sherry glass to her lips, the cup looking all the smaller in her large hands. She sat next to an abandoned poker game, one that they were not likely to return to. It just wasn't as fun when more than half of the players could count cards.

Yousef al Najem gave a derisive snort and leaned back against his Luxray, pushing his hair back from his forehead in what was obviously an affected pose he was trying very hard to make look natural. Envy was the youngest of the Sins by several years, and while he and Julia were of a similar temperament, she found him to be finicky and too obsessive for her tastes. The young man didn't know when to let things go once he had set his sights on something, and that had made trouble for them all in the past.

As she looked past al Najem, her eyes fell on the handful of hostages they had brought up to keep an eye on and occasionally taunt. The rest were being held in a conference room one floor below under heavy guard, but the truly special VIPs had been dragged up for a personal audience with the Sins. Commissioner Bright had been a thorn in their side for years now, and while her aggressive policies had forced the Sins into difficult corners, Julia noted with some satisfaction that she didn't look nearly so "tough on crime" now. Mayor Charles Lynden had visibly lost all hope several hours ago after a beating by Aukai.

And yet no matter what they did, the only one they couldn't break was the Hammer. They had already broken his left arm, and his face was a rainbow of bruises. Every few hours, they would beat him again, try to make him submit, but the old bastard refused to give them the satisfaction. Even now, he glared at her from across the room, daring her to get up and try again. No matter what they did, they couldn't even make him cry out in pain.

Even when she looked away, Julia could feel the Hammer's eyes on her, and it infuriated her. She set her wineglass down and prepared to stand up when Sloth waved her down. "Let him be for a little while," Braun said. "If he's making himself a tough nut to crack, it only means we get to drag out the fun a little longer."

Julia acquiesced with a nod and waved over one of her subordinates to fill her cup. The enforcer poured inexpertly, making a few drops splash out of the glass and onto the black marble tabletop, and Julia's nostrils flared. But she bit back her irritation; she expected her men to be killers, not busboys. She crossed her legs and took a slow sip of wine before tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. "So Braun, you've kept us in suspense long enough. What's our next play?" Her lips curled up in a smile. "I'm starting to get antsy."

The woman walked past the police cordon with a blasé disregard for the heavily armed officers in riot gear standing all around. For their part, they seemed not to register the woman in a simple white blouse and sharp pencil skirt as she walked quickly but without apparent haste through their ranks. Once she was through, four vacant-looking men in nondescript suits fell into step alongside her, and a Gothorita skipped along at her heels. Together, the odd party stepped through the large glass doors of Nimbus Tower just as the assembled forces outside realized what had happened and the uproar began.

The woman, however, heard none of this. The glass doors closed behind her with a whoosh, and the Sins' guards stationed around the lobby sprang up with a shout. They pulled their weapons, and the woman shook her head. "Put your gun in your mouth," she said. The enforcers' eyes went wide as their hands moved of their own volition, and they all raised their guns to their mouths and bit down on the cold metal. The woman's blank visage cracked into a small smile. "Pull the trigger." She pointed to one man standing by the elevators. "Not you."

Seventeen guns fired at once, and seventeen enforcers dropped to the ground with holes in their skulls. The remaining man trembled as the woman and her guards walked closer. "Tell me," the woman purred. "Which floor are your employers on?"

"Forty six," the man mumbled, the words muffled by the gun.

The woman keyed the number into the elevator's number pad. "Thank you. _Now_ you may pull the trigger."

There was a crack, and the man fell to the ground in a heap. The woman stepped over the spreading pool of blood, careful not to get any on her stiletto heels. The elevator doors dinged and swept shut, whisking them away from the carnage in the lobby.

Sloth took another sip of bourbon and swirled the glass again before setting it down on a small circular table next to the couch. He shifted his position and rolled his shoulders back. "I guess I've kept you in suspense long enough," he rumbled. "Stocks and I are already moving the money and liquid assets we've seized around our offshore accounts. About a year ago I set up three shell companies, so most of the money will be held there." He paused, something his lieutenants were used to. "Interpol is going to be up our asses, so I'll be going to ground for a while. The rest of you ought to take some vacation time and get out of Clarus City for the time being. I hear the Coumarine Riviera is nice this time of year. Or a sightseeing trip to Orre? No extradition there." He laughed, and Julia felt her mouth twitch up in a smile. "It's in our best interests to keep a low profile for now. We'll let the enterprise run on autopilot for as long as it takes to get the powers that be to let their guard down. Stocks is going to stay here and keep an eye on things while we get some R&R and let us know when everything's clear."

"So your orders are to take a vacation?" Muller said. "I could get used to this."

The elevator dinged, and Julia whirled in her chair. They weren't expecting anyone to come up. Four men in drab suits spilled out, guns in hand. The enforcers stationed around the room raised their own guns, and various pokemon prepared to pounce As Julia reached for her own weapon, a woman stepped out of the lift. "Stop." Julia's hand froze and, try as she might, she couldn't move a muscle. She tried to cry out and demand an explanation, but her throat wouldn't move. The woman from the elevator raised a finger and slowly lowered it. The enforcers' weapons dropped too, and a smile spread across the woman's lips. "That's better. Why don't we all be civil?"

Braun's knuckles were white on the arm of the sofa. "Who are you?" he gasped out.

"So you _can_ resist?" the woman asked. "You aren't just a dumb slab of muscle, are you?"

"Who are you?" Braun repeated.

"A business rival, I suppose. I thought I'd swing by and scope out the competition."

Braun struggled to rise, only to be pushed back into his seat by a physical force. Esper, Julia thought. And a damn powerful one. The woman tutted and folded her arms. "Now let's have none of that. You know, I was perfectly content to lay my own plans and carry on without interfering with you all, but your ill-conceived charade the other day made a real… well, a real clusterfuck of everything. I hate to curse, but there you have it. I had to step in and clean this up before you ruin _absolutely_ everything."

Julia's eyes darted around the room and saw that all of the other Sins were likewise incapacitated. Aukai's eyes were practically bulging out of his skull as he strained against the invisible bonds that held them, while Petrovna and al Najem were quietly seething. Muller and Stocks were not visibly struggling, but they were watching intently.

Braun had managed to raise himself to his feet, though the effort had seemed to take all of his incredible strength. "You don't know who you're dealing with," he growled.

"I know exactly who I'm dealing with!" the woman from the elevator cried. "I'm dealing with a man who thinks he's so _very_ clever, but any time you run into a problem you just pummel it into the ground. You have no sense of nuance, no sense of subtlety, all you do is break and destroy, and honestly, you have been nothing but a nuisance!"

Braun lurched forward, his fist swinging through empty air as the woman stepped back. She snapped her fingers and her four men turned their guns on Braun. "I was willing to negotiate with you, but I see that's rather pointless." She flicked her finger at Braun's Slaking. "Get rid of him." The Slaking lumbered to its feet, its vacant eyes hooded as it lurched towards its trainer. It raised one hairy fist and brought it down, but Braun was moving quicker now. He threw up his arms and stopped the normal type's blow, but the impact shook him. The Slaking grunted and cracked its other arm across Braun's ribs, hurling him against the glass windows on the far wall. The reinforced glass cracked with the impact, and Braun picked himself up with a groan. Julia could only watch in mute horror as Braun and Slaking traded punches, though the leader of the Sins could barely seem to wind his pokemon.

The woman in the white blouse rolled her eyes. "Tick tock, tick tock. Let's wrap this up."

The Slaking hip checked Braun against the window and threw another fist. Braun's hands came up and seized it, stopping the blow in mid-air. Sweat poured down Braun's face and his arms trembled as he struggled to hold it back. "Snap out of this," he rasped to his partner. "You're stronger than this bitch." For an instant, the tension in the Slaking's arm relaxed, and Julia thought that Braun had the woman beat.

But she just gave an exasperated sigh. "Oh, put your back into it, why don't you?"

The Slaking growled and shoved off its back foot, slamming Braun into and then through the window. The momentum of the shove carried the Slaking out too, and Julia's eyes went wide as Braun and his pokemon tumbled out the forty sixth floor window and disappeared. "You bitch!" she screamed and jumped up from her chair. Before the shock of being freed could pass, she felt herself locked in place again.

"Let's not make this any messier than it has to be," the woman said. Julia felt a pressure in the back of her head, like an acute migraine. "I believe this is what the finance types refer to as a hostile takeover? So I'll make you all an offer." The migraine at the back of Julia's head seemed to shift, as though it were a tentacled _thing_ , and she felt another alien presence in her head. _I can see you want power and order. I can give you that_. It sounded like the woman was speaking just beside her, but Julia also knew that the voice was coming from inside her head. Julia tried to shut her out, but she heard the woman tutting again. _Now you know that's counterproductive. Julia Richelieu, I'm in your mind. I know what you want. You want to rule this city and remake it in your own image. What if I can give you that?_

Julia tried to amplify her anger, to force the esper out. She could see the other remaining Sins fighting their own private battles, and she had no doubt that the woman was in their head as well. _You followed Marcus Braun because you admired his strength_ , the woman said. _And while I'm not the muscle-bound colossus he was, I think it's fair to say my strength is greater than his, but even so, I can't accomplish my aims alone. Julia, if you join me, I'll use my strength to pull you up along with me._

It seemed acquiescing with the esper was the easiest way to escape this. If she agreed, she could just wait until the bitch's guard was down and quite literally stab her in the back. The esper tutted in Julia's head again. _Now dear, that's hardly a good idea. I'm giving you the chance to join me of your own free will because I value what you bring to the table. But if you don't give it to me freely, I can just make a puppet out of you the same way I did with that poor Slaking. I'll use you up, and then when I'm done with you, I'll have you put a bullet in your head. That hardly sounds pleasant, no?_

So, Julia reasoned, she could join this esper and raise her status by being no better than a Herdier trained to come at her beck and call, or she could be a mindless puppet that would be summarily disposed of as soon as it became too troublesome to keep around.

 _So glad to see we're on the same page, dear. I think you'll rather enjoy working for me._

Julia gave a brusque nod, and saw Envy, Wrath and Greed do the same. Muller took another moment as she and the esper seemed to confer privately, perhaps working out the terms of their arrangement. Muller always was a stickler for contracts. Finally, after a long hesitation, Stocks gave a barely perceptible nod, really more of a narrowing of his eyes and a twitch of his head.

"Wonderful," the esper said aloud. "Now, you can keep those ridiculous codenames Mr. Braun gave you if you like, though I shall not be using them. We have a lot of business to attend to, and as I understand it they have already mobilized the national guard to…" She turned to the hostages as though noticing them for the first time. "Who the hell are they?"

"Some VIPs," Muller explained. "The elite of the city. We were going to—"

"I don't give a damn what you were going to do with them," the woman said sharply. "I have no use for them. Get them out of here." She paused for a moment and pointed at the mayor. "Except him. I could have some fun with him."

Al Najem leaned forward. "But we spent weeks planning to—"

"And your plans changed. Get them out of here." Her four men and the enforcers around the room moved stiffly to the crowd of hostages and lifted them to their feet. Those that had their legs broken were supported by the other captives and bustled to the elevator. Julia felt the alien prickling sensation in the back of her head again, and the esper groaned. "You have _more_ of them?" She flicked her fingers at two of her men. "Get down to forty five and move the rest of them out too. For Arceus's sake…"

Once the clamor had died down, the woman flopped down in Braun's place on the leather sofa. "Now, as I was saying, we have quite a bit of ground to cover and very little time to do it, no thanks to the heavy-handed tactics of your former boss…"

Alex adjusted his grip on his new batons and took a deep breath. The suit Jiro had designed for him fit like a glove. The nanofibers were light and breathable, and just like Jiro had promised, the material that made the wings was elastic and would stretch to increase drag. He hadn't had time in their frantic rush to Nimbus Tower to test its flight capabilities, but if Jiro was to be believed, it would measure up with his old suit.

According to Echo and the Gunslinger, not long ago a woman had breached the police perimeter and entered Nimbus Tower. The heroes had mobilized quickly, aided by Isabelle Forbes's private helicopter. Alex, Jiro, Lakshmi and Isabelle had all piled in while Captain Unova flew ahead with his Braviary. Alex had watched in amazement as Jiro had procured his armor from the trunk of Noboru's car, the various pieces anchoring themselves to his body with a hiss of their powered clamps. Pulling on his own suit had miraculously taken less than a minute, a far cry from the struggle it had been to don his old one. He had changed right in the driveway of Forbes Manor, sparing no thought to modesty.

The helicopter flew at top speed over the city, and they quickly landed in a square a block away from the tower, arriving just before something was hurled out of the windows near the top of the tower. Echo had rendezvoused with the rest of the heroes when they had all arrived and reported that she was fairly sure she had seen a Slaking fall through the window, and a large human whose body type would be consistent with Sloth. However, only dental work would be able to prove that, as the only thing left of the falling forms was a large bloody smear on the pavement and an assortment of shattered bones.

Using the combined credentials of Blaziken Man, the Dryad and Volcarona Mask, the heroes made their way to the front of the police barricade and were soon joined by the Cavalier and the Gunslinger. The Phantom and Archangel teleported to their side a moment later, and they formed a line just behind the riot squad's clear shields.

Hierro whistled low in his throat, and Alex glanced up. There was movement in the lobby behind the glass doors. The riot squads raised their guns as the doors hissed open and a crowd of people came tumbling out. Several had their hands raised over their heads, and many seemed to be injured. "Don't shoot!" Blaziken Man commanded.

"But what if it's a trick?" a sergeant next to him said, still sighting down his rifle.

"Don't shoot _yet_."

Blaziken Man strode forward with his hand extended, his armor clanking. The white circle on his armored hand began to glow as he charged a blast, and fire crackled around Masakado's wrists as he walked at his trainer's side. As Blaziken Man reached the first people in the disorganized mob, one woman pitched forward, and he caught her with his left hand. "These are civilians!" he shouted. "Many of them are hurt!"

"MEDICS!" the Cavalier boomed. "WE NEED MEDICS."

The police lowered their weapons as the heroes and emergency teams rushed forward to see to the injured. Alex and Hierro each got on one side of a swaying middle aged man who had a thick crust of dried blood on the side of his head, and supported him until a doctor relieved them. They turned back to find more people to aid, only to spy a familiar face.

The Hammer and Commissioner Bright limped out through the lobby doors, the old man's arm held in a crude splint. "Johannes!" Blaziken Man cried as he ran over. "What happened to you?"

"I've had worse," the Hammer grunted. "See to the commissioner."

While Blaziken Man led Bright away, Alex slipped under the old man's good arm. The Hammer grinned despite the obvious pain he was in. "Well, if it isn't Hawlucha Man! You changed up your wardrobe!"

Alex couldn't help but smile back. "It was time for an upgrade. What happened to you in there?"

"Nothing I couldn't handle," the Hammer replied.

"Is it true what they're saying? Is Sloth…?"

The Hammer nodded. "Yeah. Once the dust here settles, Jiro and I will have a talk and figure out how to proceed." He and Alex reached the perimeter and an emergency technician shooed Alex away. Before he could leave, the Hammer grabbed his arm. "Don't think that just because Sloth is gone the city is safe. The fight has only just begun, Hawlucha Man. Clarus City still has need of your talents. I'll be in touch."

Alex nodded, and he and Hierro ran back into the press of bodies. Lakshmi glided to the Hammer's elbow, and a single look at the medic made him think twice about sending her away. "Thank goodness you survived, Johannes."

The Hammer thumped his chest with his good hand. "It takes more than a few beatings to keep Johannes Schlagen down."

The Dryad smirked. "You and your bluster. You don't have to keep the brave face up around me."

The Hammer looked around at the milling crowds. "I'm not doing it for you. In times like this, people look to heroes to set the tone. If I gave in to pain and despair, they would have too. I can lick my wounds when this is over." He winced and sucked in a breath as the medic prodded his broken arm. "Jiro and Isabelle, they're doing what I can't do right now." He glowered down at his arm. "I should be out there helping. That's what's expected of me."

"Johannes," Lakshmi said gently. "No one expects anything more out of you right now. You stood up to the Sins and came out alive and undaunted."

"So has every hero here today," the Hammer said.

"You aren't the only hero in the city, Johannes. Let the rest of us carry the burden for a little while." Lakshmi turned and helped a woman through the police barricade and signaled several of her grass types to move further down the perimeter as the crowd began to disperse. "We won't be around forever." She nodded to where Volcarona Mask was herding a group of dazed men and women to safety. Nearby, the Phantom escorted a man in a tattered suit to an ambulance while his ghosts took up positions around the doors to Nimbus Tower. Archangel spoke softly to a hysterical man, and he quickly calmed down. Echo used the microphones wired into her bodysuit to direct the traffic, waving over those who needed help and sending them onward in an orderly fashion. Hawlucha Man supported a woman with a broken leg while his pokemon partner held the hand of a blind man who was clearly in shock. Lakshmi turned to Johannes and smiled. "You've done your part. Now it's time to let the younger heroes have their chance."

"You're right. As usual."

Lakshmi tracked the Hammer's eyes and winked. "You've taken quite a shine to Hawlucha Man, haven't you?"

"Can you blame me? A talent like his, and no hesitation when it comes to facing down danger? For Arceus's sake, he charged Sloth himself without a second thought." Johannes laughed. "The lad has balls of steel!"

"I watched him run to the aid of civilians in the initial attack. I almost wonder if the thought of his own safety even crossed his mind." Lakshmi sighed. "We spent all this time grooming Izzy to be Clarus City's hero when we're gone. I'm starting to think we might have been too narrow-minded. We could never protect this city on our own, and it's cruel to expect her to do it."

"I don't doubt the little sparkplug could, but I see your point." The Hammer settled back on his stool. "But we're learning too. We already know what Izzy and Archangel are capable of, so maybe it's time to widen our reach. With my arm busted, I'll be out of commission for a while, so I'll see if I can start laying the groundwork there." He nodded. "Hawlucha Man, Echo, the Phantom, they all have the makings of great heroes, they just need a little guidance. It's a hard road to walk, but it's our job as the older generation to smooth the way as best we can."


	12. Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

In the weeks following Marcus Braun's death, life in Clarus City returned to normal. Or as close to normal as things could be in Clarus City, anyways. The heroes had gone their separate ways, and Alex had not heard from them since. The specific details behind Sloth's demise were a closely guarded secret that Alex had not been made privy to, but the ultimate result was that the Sins had gone silent, leaving a power vacuum in the underworld. The Baron had always kept the Sins more or less out of Avenbrooke, but he had begun expanding his enterprise out into Greenpoint, and thwarting that had kept Alex busy. Though he knew that Greenpoint was Echo and the Phantom's beat, they seemed to have other things they were dealing with, leaving Alex to fight on alone.

On the other side of the city, across the West River in Ridgewood, the mercenaries and thieves of the Kuromori clan were grabbing as much of the Sins' territory as they could. However, Alex had yet to see any of their black-clothed warriors lurking around Avenbrooke, so he was content to leave them to the Cavalier and the Gunslinger.

In the aftermath of the Sins' offensive, Jiro Sasaki had given Alex a cellphone and had instructed him to keep it close, and that he would use it to contact Alex once he, the Dryad and the Hammer had figured out what their next move should be. But three weeks after the incident at Nimbus Tower and the phone hadn't so much as lit up, and Alex was starting to wonder if it ever would.

He and Hierro glided over the rooftops of Avenbrooke, letting a wind coming down from the north lift their wings and carry them along. True to Jiro's word, the new suit flew like a dream. The material was lightweight and had very little drag, and the wings expanded to catch the breeze. It was durable, and Alex could fight more freely knowing he didn't have to worry about errant tears, which meant he was able to eat a little better without having to sock away money for suit repairs.

He and Hierro had picked up on a strange amount of activity by a nearly abandoned wharf over the last few days. The police had noted several cars with tinted windows pulling up, and occasionally men were seen lurking around the docks. The Eleventh's informants had heard rumblings that some sort of deal would be taking place here tonight, but as far as they knew it wasn't a gun runner or a particularly large shipment of drugs. As such, the Eleventh had placed it at a low priority and Captain Anderson had decided not to allocate resources that were better served cracking down on the Baron. But Alex's curiosity was piqued, and he had struck out with Hierro to keep an eye on things.

They reached the wharf and dropped down into a narrow alley between buildings, slipping into the shadows and keeping an eye on the gravel lot illuminated by a single flickering lamp. The scrape of a boot behind them made Alex whirl around, only to be shoved up against the wall of the warehouse. He instinctively reached for his stun batons, but his angle was wrong. Even if he freed them from his belt, he wouldn't be able to bring them to bear on his unseen assailant, and as of now, they were concealed by his wings. If he kept them holstered, he could still surprise his attacker once he squirmed free of their elbow. He heard Hierro shriek and the Hawlucha's claws skitter over the pavement, and his unseen foe grunted.

"Damn it, you two?" The pressure on Alex's back released and he spun around. A woman in a battered leather jacket swung her metal baseball bat over her shoulder. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" Alex asked.

Gwen Culain rolled her eyes. "I'm working a contract."

"What kind of contract?"

"As far as I know, it's all legal, if that's what you're wondering." The security contractor scowled. "More than that, I'm not at liberty to say. All I know is my employer wants this kept off the books for what I assume are tax reasons. I'm just here to make sure he doesn't get cheated out of his payment."

"Who's the buyer?"

"None of your damn business." Gwen lowered her bat and looked out over the wharf. "Listen, this is legit, okay? You heroes may not buy it, but I do have morals. When the Sins started getting aggressive a few months ago, I turned down a _lot_ of their contracts. There hasn't been a lot of solid protection work coming my way lately, and I need this." She sighed. "It's a simple drop off. I don't want to make it all complicated. I just want to take my money and go."

Alex glanced at Hierro and shrugged. "You want backup?"

"What?"

"I figure another pair of eyes won't hurt. My Hawlucha and I will hide out on a roof and keep watch. If something about the deal seems off, we'll tail them and take care of it once you're clear."

"What's in it for you?"

"I'm here, and I see a way to do something that will help. That's what being a hero is all about."

"You heroes are fuckin' weird, dude." She tensed and looked up at the rooftops above them. "Son of a—"

Alex grunted. "I saw it." Hierro bounded up the side of the building and took off after the interloper. Alex hauled himself up an access ladder and gave chase, sprinting over the rooftops. Gwen ran alongside on the ground, her teeth clenched. Hierro quickly caught up with the fleeing intruder and pinned her down. Alex quickly reached his partner's side and glanced down at the captive. "You? Really?"

The Shadow struggled against Hierro's grasp. "Are you kidding me? _You_?"

Gwen climbed up to the roof and glanced between the two of them. "What's going on? You know each other?" She groaned. "Why does everything have to always be so damn complicated in this town?"

The Shadow slithered out from under Hierro and jumped to her feet. Alex reached for his batons, but she threw her hands up. "Hey, easy buddy! No need for this to get ugly. I'm probably sort of on your side. Kind of."

"You want to explain that?" Gwen thumped her bat against the palm of her hand.

"I'm just here to swipe something from the Kuromori. You heroes don't like them, right?" The Shadow smirked at Alex. "And I figure the enemy of your enemy is basically your friend."

"The Kuromori are in Ridgewood."

"Not tonight they aren't." The Shadow jerked her head towards Gwen. "But you already knew that, didn't you?"

"What's she talking about?" Alex demanded.

Gwen sighed, and the Shadow turned back to Alex. "Ms. Bodyguard didn't tell you? Her employer is selling a priceless historical artifact to the Kuromori clan." She was unable to keep the glee from her voice. "And _I've_ been hired to make sure they don't get their hands on it."

"Then I guess we're going to have a problem." Gwen stalked forward, and the Shadow skipped two paces back. "I signed a contract stipulating that I ensure my employer's transaction is completed and that he gets away safely. If you're standing in the way of that…"

"No, I don't care about _that_ ," the Shadow replied. "He can take his dirty money and go. My employer just wants to make sure that at the end of the day, the Kuromori don't have it." She waved her hand in a lazy gesture. "And while I'm pretty sure I can handle this solo, it won't hurt to have my ass covered. So what do you say, bird brain? Want to help me spite some ninjas and keep some ancient Johtonian voodoo out of their hands?"

Alex rolled his eyes. "I _definitely_ can't see _any_ possible way this could go horribly wrong. But if it keeps the Kuromori out of Avenbrooke…"

"That's the spirit! What about you, Ms. Bodyguard?"

"I have a contractual obligation to my employer to ensure he isn't harmed and that he gets his money. Insofar as I have a guarantee of that, I'm willing to hear you out."

"Awesome. All right, so here's the plan…"

Gwen stood underneath a fluorescent streetlight, her bat slung over her shoulder and her Aggron looming behind her. Somewhere on a nearby rooftop, Hawlucha Man and his partner crouched in the darkness. The new suit had thrown her off at first, but she had to admit it was effective for staying concealed. She had no idea where the so-called Shadow was lurking, but that was probably for the best. The entire plan had sounded like something the girl had pulled out of her ass. But Hawlucha Man had begrudgingly attested to the cat burglar's skills, and Gwen had decided to watch and see how it all played out. Her involvement in the plot was fairly minimal, and not much more than she would have been required to do under her contract. There was the slight chance that the Kuromori would retaliate against her employer later on if they suspected his involvement in the scheme, but that was beyond the scope of her contract. It might even make him consider employing her services again on a more long term basis.

If that worked out, she could negotiate for health insurance. So it was probably a win-win for her.

The Kuromori had stiffed her on a contract almost a year ago, but she was neither stupid nor suicidal, so she had decided to let the matter drop. But the slight to her reputation and professional pride still stung, and if this was a way to get back at the ninjas who thought they could cross Gwendolyn Culain and get away with it, then she was game to try. If nothing else, she and Maximus could bust a few heads.

Gwen liked busting heads.

A car pulled into the gravel lot behind her, and Gwen turned around. The driver's side door swing open, and a reedy man hurried out to open a back door. Klaus Overstreet was helped out his car by his assistant, a man Gwen hadn't bothered to learn the name of. Her employer was known to most of Clarus City as a well-heeled financier and the owner of a substantial family fortune. What fewer people knew was that Overstreet had made a series of abjectly terrible investments, and the recent upheaval with the Sins had left him in somewhat dire financial straits. He still made enough in a month to cover Gwen's expenses for a year, but rich assholes have the tendency to want to keep up the luxurious lifestyle to which they are accustomed, so instead of selling off one of his yachts, renting out one of his townhouses, and cutting gold Magikarp caviar from his diet, Klaus Overstreet had begun fencing a few of his family treasures to finance a new round of investments in an effort to save his fortune.

Gwen found the man insufferable, but she wasn't paid to like her clients.

Overstreet walked over to her, aided by a gilded cane. His assistant stood at his left arm, holding a box made of carved hardwood. A Kriketune hopped along on his right. Overstreet coughed into a handkerchief and looked up at Gwen from under eyebrows in sore need of a trim. "Ms. Culain, is everything arranged?"

"The lot's clear. Everything is ready for the handoff. The buyer will be here in," she checked the clock on her phone, "five minutes, I guess. Now, about my fee…"

"Yes, yes," Overstreet grumbled, pulling his own phone from a pocket of his suit. He tapped a few buttons and nodded. "Half of the agreed upon amount has been deposited in your account. You will receive the rest when the handoff is completed."

Gwen checked the notification from her bank and nodded. "All right. When the buyers arrive, your assistant and I will go and make the handoff. You'll wait here with Maximus. Then, once everything is finalized, your assistant will come back with your money, you'll get in the car and drive away. Understand?"

"Ms. Culain, I am perfectly capable of handling my own dealings."

The bodyguard fought the urge to roll her eyes. She was a professional, after all. "Mr. Overstreet, I'll be blunt. I've worked with the Kuromori before, and I have found it never hurts to be excessively wary when dealing with this type of buyer. It is better for all of us if you remain here. It minimizes the risk and liability, and my Aggron is perfectly capable of defending you until I can cross the distance from the handoff point. The price of the artifact has been agreed upon already, and so there is no reason why the handoff cannot be made by proxy.

"My responsibility here is to protect you, and the best way for me to do that is to keep you out of harm's way entirely." Gwen planted her metal bat on the ground in front of her. "I don't tell you how to do your job, so please stand back and let me do mine."

Overstreet's face went red. "You're an impudent one!"

"And I get results. You hired me for a reason, Mr. Overstreet."

The rattle of tires over gravel cut off her employer's response as four black cars with tinted windows pulled into the lot. Gwen pulled a cigarette from the pack in her jacket pocket, stuck it between her teeth, and lit it with the lighter she had taken from her father. She rolled the cigarette over to the side of her mouth, clenching it between her teeth like the detectives in movies she had watched with her mom when she was a kid. Some people thought she did it to look tough, but mostly it was to keep her hands free. She snapped her fingers at the assistant. "Come on, poindexter. Let's get this over with."

As she crossed the lot, she glanced up at the rooftop Hawlucha Man was on. She thought she could make out his shape in the darkness, but only because she was looking for it. But for all she knew, it was just an exhaust fan. The streetlights had killed her night vision, but Overstreet had insisted the handoff be carried out somewhere well-lit, despite her advice otherwise. The Kuromori delegation met them halfway across the lot.

The Kuromori were dressed in sleek black suits, none of the lightweight body armor and hoods they favored when engaged in their more usual business. She thought she could see the bulge of knives and perhaps a gun strapped underneath the jackets of the four bodyguards the Kuromori representative had brought, but that was just professional paranoia. She had never known a Kuromori to go anywhere unarmed. A Sabeleye, a Toxicroak and two Bisharp waited attentively at the bodyguards' side.

Sukiyama, the younger brother of clan patriarch Saito Kuromori, flashed a smile devoid of any genuine warmth. "Gwendolyn, how nice to see you again." Sukiyama Kuromori had aged with dignity; his hair was now more salt then pepper, but his beard was well-trimmed, and his eyes glinted with what could have been mirth or malice. His hands still seemed strong, and his name still instilled fear in the right (or wrong, Gwen supposed) circles. A Crobat perched on his shoulder, and Sukiyama reached up to scratch the flying type's ear.

Gwen didn't like bats.

She exhaled a plume of smoke, not quite in Sukiyama's face, but certainly close enough to annoy him. "Suki. You have the money?"

"It wouldn't hurt to practice some social graces, Gwendolyn."

"I'm not paid to 'practice social graces'. I'm paid to get results." She saw a movement off to the left. It could have been nothing, or it could have been the Shadow moving into position. She exhaled another cloud of smoke and scuffed her boot against the gravel to distract Sukiyama and his bodyguards before gesturing to Overstreet's assistant. "We upheld our end of the deal. Where's the money?"

Sukiyama sighed and snapped his fingers. The bodyguard on the left picked up a steel case and brought it over to Gwen and Overstreet's assistant. He popped the clasps and showed them the stacks of bills within. Gwen glanced over at the assistant. "You ought to count that."

"You don't take me as a man of my word?" Sukiyama asked, sounding almost genuinely hurt.

"Absolutely fuckin' not," Gwen muttered. She would have advised the reedy guy to do that anyway, even if she weren't trying to buy time for her co-conspirators.

The assistant counted the stacks and nodded. "It's all here."

"Well would you look at that," Gwen said. "All right, give them the package."

The assistant handed Sukiyama the carved box, and Sukiyama reverently lifted the cover. His eyes shone as he looked down at the artifact within. "Incredible," he gasped, running his finger along the edge of the glittering, multi-colored feather resting on a red velvet cushion. "To see a Rainbow Wing so far from Johto, and in this condition…" He snapped the lid of the box shut. "Thank you, Ms. Culain. As always, it is a pleasure doing business with you."

"Whatever, Suki." Gwen dropped her cigarette to the gravel and took her bat off her shoulder, pounding the cigarette twice with the circular tip, the signal to Hawlucha Man that the handoff had proceeded without any complications.

They hadn't decided on a signal for what would happen if there were complications. Gwen figured it would probably have been obvious enough.

She and the assistant walked back to Mr. Overstreet, and Gwen quickly bundled him into the backseat of his car, all but throwing his Kriketune into his lap. "Go," she hissed. She turned to the assistant. "Drive, and don't stop until you hit the expressway. If you need anything else, Overstreet has my card."

Overstreet shouted a protest from the backseat. Gwen leaned down to the window. "Shut up and do as I say. You have your money, and you're going to get out of here safely. Send me the rest of my fee from the car."

By this point, the Kuromori had reached their cars. Gwen heard muffled cursing as the drivers tried and failed to get their engines to start. Despite herself, Gwen couldn't help but be impressed. If the Shadow had the skills to silently slip in and cut four engine lines without being detected in the tiny window Gwen had given her, maybe she wasn't as much of an airhead as Gwen had thought.

Sukiyama stepped out of the backseat of his car and pointed at Gwen and Overstreet. The orders he was shouting were indistinct from this distance, but Gwen caught the meaning well enough. She pounded the trunk of Overstreet's car with her left hand. "Go!" She turned to her partner pokemon. "Maximus, it's time to earn your keep!"

Her Aggron lurched in front of her as the first volley of gunshots rang out across the lot. The bullets pinged against the steel type's armor, and Maximus dug his claws into the gravel. Indistinct shapes bounded across the rooftops as Kuromori ninjas sprang from their hiding places. Several of them leapt to the ground and began to sprint across the lot. Maximus roared and swung his tail around, flinging several of them back. Two managed to drop their weight and slide underneath her partner's tail, only for the first to be clubbed by the base of Gwen's bat in the center of his forehead. The second managed to regain his feet only for Gwen to swing across his ribs and knocking him right into Maximus's follow-up swipe.

On the rooftops, she saw Hawlucha Man's partner kick a pouncing Seviper in the face, while the masked vigilante himself clubbed two ninjas with his batons. The Hawlucha screamed and jumped forward, its taloned feet lashing out with a series of spinning kicks. The disruption prevented more of the Kuromori from descending on her and Maximus, and she supposed she owed Hawlucha Man one for that.

While Gwen had talked to the Kuromori representatives, Alex had activated the night vision Jiro Sasaki had implemented in his mask. However, the bright floodlights over the meeting had interfered with Alex's view, so he as he fumbled to deactivate it, he had accidentally turned on the heat-sensitive lenses. The world had changed to a large expanse of blue-black, dotted sporadically with blotches of yellow and red. He had silently alerted Hierro to the threat, and they had made ready to reveal themselves when things went to hell.

Alex had to admit that the Kuromori were far more skilled than the average thugs he and Hierro normally found themselves up against. Even among the organized crime factions, the Baron's enforcers tended to rely on brute strength and blunt force trauma to get their point across, and the few times he had tangled with the Sins' forces, it was their numbers that had made them a daunting challenge rather than their combat prowess. But the Kuromori were all obviously skilled martial artists trained for close combat. Alex had no time to catch his breath after dispatching one ninja before another one leapt at him. Hierro was similarly pressed, and Alex found himself glad that the Kuromori weren't usually his problem.

He jumped back as one of the ninjas swiped at him with a curved knife. Jiro had told him that the new suit was reinforced to protect him from knife attacks, but he wasn't going to tempt fate. Alex went low and swiped out his foe's legs from underneath him and then, when the ninja fell to the gravel rooftop, he jabbed his stun baton underneath the man's ribs. The ninja briefly convulsed before falling still. As his next opponent jumped at him, Alex quickly scanned the ground below. Gwen seemed to be holding her own, but he saw no sign of the Shadow.

Hierro jumped to Alex's side, his claws balled into fists. The two of them stood back-to-back as the Kuromori closed in. His partner caught his eye, and Alex could see what Hierro was thinking just from the tautness of his muscles and the way the Hawlucha had adjusted his pose. Alex nodded, and Hierro flew back out towards the group of Kuromori attackers. The first ninja and his Bisharp lunged in, but Hierro bounded over them and seized the head of a Zangoose in his claws. He hurled the normal type at its trainer while Alex clubbed the Bisharp and grabbed the first ninja in a lock. He then used the momentum of the man's forward motion to redirect him and hurled him back at his comrades, bowling two of them over.

"Hawlucha Man, look out!"

Alex dropped to a crouch when he heard Gwen cry out, and barely avoided Sukiyama's Crobat as it swooped down. The poison type banked sharply in the air and whirled on Hierro, but the bodyguard's shouted warning had given the Hawlucha enough time to react. As the Crobat stiffened its wings to strike, Hierro dropped his weight and rolled backwards. As the Crobat passed overhead, Hierro's legs shot up, the talons balled. He struck the Crobat in its abdomen, throwing it off balance. Hierro bounded back to his feet and seized the flying type's lower right wing. He spun it in an arc and threw it at the ground, where it slid across the gravel. A Darmanitan leapt at Hierro's exposed back, fire brimming in its grinning maw. Alex sprinted forward and jumped, throwing his body weight behind a hip check that caught the Darmanitan in mid-air, throwing it over the side of the roof.

On the ground, the Shadow watched Sukiyama send his pokemon away from her hiding place. She rolled out from under the Kuromori town car she had sheltered beneath and kicked out Sukiyama's legs. As the man fell, she seized the wooden box from his hands. Sukiyama snarled and reached for the knife in his suit jacket, but an indistinct purple shape sprang from his shadow and licked his face. Sukiyama went rigid as the toxins from the Haunter's tongue attacked his nervous system, locking him in place. "You!" he hissed through clenched teeth.

The Shadow tucked the box under her arm and smirked. "You're damn right it's me." Then she was sprinting away as Sukiyama's stunned bodyguards struggled to disengage from their fight with Gwen and Maximus to pursue. A group of Alex's opponents on the rooftops broke off and raced after the fleeing thief. Gwen clubbed another man down and signaled for Maximus to spin again. As the Aggron pivoted his considerable bulk, Gwen jumped up on Maximus's back leg and hauled herself onto the safety of his back. Sukiyama's men ran as the armored behemoth's tail bore down on them and their pokemon. She waved up at Alex. "Go after the Shadow! I'm clear!" Once Maximus completed his turn, she jumped off his back and returned him to his pokeball. She dashed across the parking lot to where she had parked her motorcycle, and swung up onto the seat. She gunned the engine, pulled a pair of cracked aviator sunglasses from her jacket and slid them on. The bike roared to life and tore out of the shipping yard and towards the expressway. A group of ninjas hurried after her, but even they couldn't keep pace with a motorcycle going full throttle.

Alex and Hierro ran to the edge of the rooftop and took off. By now, bounding across buildings was as natural to Alex as running, and the flat roofs of the warehouses in Avenbrooke's shipping district made this easier than usual. He followed the Kuromori pursuing the Shadow, no longer making any effort to disguise their presence. The Shadow came to the tall barbed wire fence that marked the edge of the shipping yard and slipped through a gap in the links. The barrier only slowed the ninjas for a moment, and soon they were after her again.

Alex and Hierro took a running start and soared out over the fence, clearing it with ease. The first of the ninjas reached the Shadow, but before he could reach out and grab her, a purple blur jumped at him. The man buckled as whatever it was hit him in the chest, and then fell back clutching his bleeding face. The Shadow's Purrloin jumped back to its trainer and bounded along at her heels as Alex cruised in low. He and Hierro dropped onto two more Kuromori, knocking them flat. Alex saw the Shadow turned a corner up ahead and sprinted after her. They turned onto a long, straight alley, a straight shot through rows of old brick clerical offices with small blind alleys every ten or twenty yards. The ninjas were gaining, and Alex ran as fast as he could, though his lungs had begun to burn. Just as he caught up with the Shadow and her pokemon, he heard a car peel out of a blind alley just behind them before coming to a screaming halt. Alex whirled and prepared to fight, but he felt the Shadow grab his shoulder and pull him back. "Take it easy, bird brain! That's our backup!"

A towering figure jumped from the car and leveled a machine gun. The staccato burst of fire echoed up and down the alley as he fired several times into the oncoming crowd of ninjas. Alex saw several drop, while others ran down alleys to the side. The man with the machine gun glanced over his shoulder. "Hawlucha Man? What are _you_ doing here?"

Alex raised his batons again. "Giordano? What the hell?"

The Shadow stepped between them. "Take it easy, Bruce. He's cool."

"You didn't tell me your employer was the Baron!" Alex shouted.

"You didn't ask!" the Shadow snapped back.

"So we just stole some powerful ancient artifact from ninjas and gave it over to my arch nemesis?"

"You got a high opinion of yourself, kid," Giordano grumbled as he fired down the alley again.

"It's going to the museum!" the Shadow said. "And is this really the best place to have this conversation?"

Giordano lowered his gun. "We're clear." He grinned. "I sent those ninjas running with their tail between their legs. You have the package?"

The Shadow held out the box, and Giordano put it in the passenger seat of the car. He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped a few keys. He nodded to the Shadow. "Pleasure doing business with you." He slipped back into the car, reversed, and then drove away.

Alex and Hierro almost raced after him, but the Shadow stopped them. "It's not worth it, dude. Look, it's not a big deal, okay? You can still be one of the good guys."

"We just aided and abetted criminals!" Alex growled. "I thought the Rainbow Wing was too dangerous to be in the Kuromori's hands. How is it any better in the Baron's?"

"Because the Baron's not keeping it, _duh_. He's going to donate it to the Clarus Museum of Art and Culture."

"How do you know?"

"Well, the last six priceless historical artifacts I stole for him all ended up there, so I'd say it's safe odds."

"I… you… what?"

The Shadow shrugged. "The Baron and I have a deal. He hears about things that he'd rather his rivals not have, so he contacts me to get them out of their hands. Then he makes an 'anonymous' donation to the CMAC and gets that artifact the best protection the city can afford. The museum gets priceless treasures to study basically for free, so they don't ask too many questions." She pulled out her phone and checked a notification for a secure money transfer. "And the gigs pay pretty well too." She tilted her phone screen towards Alex.

"That's, uh, a comma, not a decimal point?"

"Damn right. You ever think you're in the wrong line of work, bird brain?"

Alex glanced at Hierro and sighed. "So what we did… it was technically the right thing?"

"Yeah dude, I guess." The Shadow shrugged. "Or at least the only people getting hurt are the ones who deserve it. Anyways," she turned and gave him a jaunty wave. "I'm calling it a night. See you around, Hawlucha Man. I like the new suit."

Before Alex could stop her, she had vanished into the darkness. Alex slumped against the wall and sighed. "Hierro, when did everything get so damn complicated?" He dug the phone Blaziken Man had given him from his belt and glanced down at the screen. Still no messages. Alex sighed and put the phone away while Hierro looked for a fire escape. It was still a few hours until dawn, and that meant a few hours for things to go bump in the night in Avenbrooke.


	13. Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

Alex had learned two things so far that night. The first was that his suit was fireproof. The second was that Sergeant Matsuri cursed like a sailor when she was pissed off.

He and Hierro crashed through the third story window of a supposedly abandoned tenement house while Matsuri kicked down the door on the ground level, each blow punctuated by yet another curse. "Son of a bi… Motherfu... there we go!" There were a series of crashes as the door was knocked off its hinges and Matsuri's booted feet stomped across the first floor landing. "Hawlucha Man, you have visual on the runners?"

Alex glared at the unkempt old man huddling in the corner of the dingy room. He muttered to himself and hugged five Pidove close. Alex inclined his head and walked out onto the landing. They weren't here to clear out squatters. The man's door had been broken down, and the door at the far end of the landing was standing ajar. "No visual, but they came through here."

"Damn it! All right, I'm heading out the back."

He and Matsuri were pursuing the leaders of an opiate ring that Matsuri had been chasing down leads for since before the Sins' attack. In the aftermath of Sloth's downfall and the Sins going dormant, the drug suppliers had cut ties with Gluttony and thrown in with the Baron's organization and expanded their Avenbrooke operation. Matsuri had enlisted Hawlucha Man's help in ambushing them in what they had hoped would be a quick sting operation, but Antoine and Thomas Coquille had managed to slip out of their main supply base and had led Matsuri and Alex on a mad chase through their safe houses.

Alex ran across the landing and vaulted out the broken window onto the fire escape. The building across the way had no windows facing the alley, so he had to assume the drug czars had taken to the roof. He called this down to Matsuri and sprinted up the fire escape. When he and Hierro reached the top, he estimated the distance across the alley. He could probably make the jump, but he thought he would need his wingsuit to clear the distance. Antoine and Thomas only had a Breloom and Sabeleye to aid them, and neither would provide much help in crossing the gap. The building stood on a street corner, meaning it was open air to the right and straight ahead, which left only the left neighbor. The building there was flush up against the tenement house, but another story taller. Hierro was already running forward, bounding up the wall with two quick leaps. Alex followed after, jumping as high as he could before dashing up the wall and just managing to grab the lip of the roof. He reached up with his free hand and felt Hierro's hand grab his wrist, hauling him up the rest of the way.

Matsuri reached the roof just in time to watch Alex scramble up the building. "Oh, you have got to be fuckin' _kidding_ me!"

"Can you make it?" Alex called back.

Alex assumed by the stream of curses that she probably couldn't. He scanned up and down the street, but the Coquilles had moved fast. He and Matsuri assumed they were taking a circuitous route to their hideout somewhere in the warehouse district, but they had hoped to head them off before the Coquilles got that far. The sprawling warehouse district was too much ground even for the entire Eleventh Precinct to cover, and too many criminals had vanished into its alleys. Alex had to assume Thomas and Antoine were heading vaguely southwest, and the most logical path for them to take would be up St. Martine Avenue, especially if they were trying to shake a pursuit.

Alex and Hierro turned back towards Matsuri. "I can't see them, so looks like we're going for Plan B. I'll take the rooftops towards St. Martine."

Matsuri swore again. "The night market?"

"The night market," Alex agreed.

The Avenbrooke night market spanned several blocks along St. Martine Avenue, clogging the streets with shoppers and revelers as they sampled food from all over the world, traded wares and got drunk. The night market was a major tourist draw for Avenbrooke in the warmer months of the year, but the bulk of the patrons were locals who just wanted fried, greasy food and to enjoy a beer outside under strings of Solstice lights. The problem with the night market was that between the stalls and the foot traffic, it effectively barred motor traffic and consequently made it very hard to police. An enterprising criminal could shove their way through the crowd and lose a pursuing officer, even if the officer abandoned their cruiser and followed on foot.

But not many criminals counted on a pursuer from the air.

Alex stretched out his arms. "You go back down to the street and loop around in your car. I'll take the rooftops."

Matsuri nodded. "I'll rendezvous with you on Seventeenth."

Alex and Hierro ran to the edge of the building and took off, soaring out over the street. The rooftop had been the tallest for several blocks, and a steady, favorable wind was blowing. Alex angled his body west, towards the gentrified neighborhoods that slowly gave way to the lights and revelry of the night market.

Rooftop gardens and elegant backyard patios flashed by below Alex and Hierro as they shot overhead, occasionally dashing across an empty rooftop. Alex could see the glow of the night market, even from several blocks away, a golden haze bleeding over the tops of distant buildings.

As they closed the gap, the wind shifted, and Alex felt himself quickly losing altitude. He spread his wings as wide as he could, but they couldn't catch enough drag to keep him aloft. He angled himself so that he drifted over the brownstone apartments on the side of the street so he wouldn't fall quite so far and lose precious time. The rooftops rushed by underneath him as he scanned for a place to land, but the buildings all had jumbles of machinery and HVAC equipment on the roofs, and he had no safe place to come down.

Three buildings ahead, he saw a well-lit rooftop with a terrace garden, and knew that he would reach it just before he crashed. He prepared to land, and then saw that the rooftop was occupied. A long table stretched across its length, and a dinner party seemed to be in progress. "Oh crap," Alex muttered.

He landed on the table with a bang, and was immediately off and running. The party guests shouted in alarm and indignation as he sprinted down the length of the table, doing his best not to step in any of the food as the diners hurried to snatch up their plates. "Sorry! Really sorry! Oh, watch your wine!" He stumbled and nearly face planted into the main course before righting himself and continuing onward. "Sorry again! This all looks really good, by the way."

When he reached the end of the table, the man sitting there stood up in a huff. "Now listen here, you—"

Alex jumped off the edge of the table onto the lip around the building's edge and sprang off. "Kind of in a rush right now! Enjoy the rest of the party!"

Hierro drifted down to glide beside him and silently shook his head. Evidently the Hawlucha had managed to remain aloft and had watched Alex's mishap from above. At least Hierro had the grace not to laugh in Alex's face about it. Or at least, he didn't laugh now, but Alex was sure he wouldn't hear the end of it later.

They reached the night market without further mishaps, and paused on a rooftop to scan the crowd. The market itself stretched for seven city blocks down St. Martine Avenue, with tents selling food, booze, and virtually everything else under the sun on each side of the street. A thick press of bodies drifted up and down the avenue, filling the night air with chatter. The shifting sea of people and pokemon made it too hard for Alex to focus on any one individual, but Hierro's eyes were far sharper. "You got something?" Alex asked.

Hierro nodded and pointed off to Alex's right. Alex couldn't make out anything specific in the undulating crowd, but he backed up a few paces from the lip of the building. "Lead on, partner." They shot out over the night market, and Alex heard several gasps down below.

"Hey, is that Hawlucha Man?"

"Hawlucha Man! Hey!"

"What's going on? Should we be worried?"

"Look, it's Hawlucha Man!"

Hierro stooped into a dive, and the crowd parted around the flying type as Alex alighted behind him. "Antoine Coquille. Don't make this any harder than it needs to be."

Antoine whirled. "You don't know when to quit, do you?"

"Never have," Alex quipped back.

Antoine snarled and whipped out his left hand. Hierro shrieked as a Sabeleye burst from the shadows and Thomas Coquille rushed out of the crowd, a wicked-looking knife clutched in his fist. "Eyes on me!" Alex barked, and he saw Hierro tense. Alex swept low and drew his batons while Hierro jumped up and launched off Alex's back, driving his taloned foot into Thomas's chest, sending the man flying back into the night market crowd. Alex activated the electric current in his batons and clubbed the Sabeleye as it lunged. "Everyone stand back!" Alex commanded as a few men made to grab Thomas's arms. "The CCPD and I have this under control. I don't want anyone getting hurt!" The crowd withdrew as Antoine commanded his Breloom to attack. Alex swept his leg up into a roundhouse kick, knocking the grass type into Hierro's fist.

"Yeah Hawlucha Man! Show 'em how it's done!"

"You can do it!"

"Teach 'em not to mess with Avenbrooke!"

"Kick his ass, Hawlucha Man!"

Antoine gritted his teeth and drew a gun from beneath his jacket, brandishing it at the crowd. "Out of the way," he snapped. The crowd instinctively parted, and Antoine sprinted through. Hierro tried to snatch Thomas as he ran by, but only managed to tear his coat. The Coquille's Sabeleye melted back into the shadows as the Breloom bounded after its trainers. Alex and Hierro took off after them, but the Coquilles did not make it easy. They overturned small stalls in their wake and shoved people and pokemon down, forcing Alex to leap over them, losing precious seconds.

"Hey Hawlucha Man, over here!" A fruit vendor waved to Alex from the bed of his pickup truck and pointed at the roof of his stall. "Jump on up!"

Alex grinned beneath his cowl as he vaulted into the truck, onto the cab, and then finally pulling himself onto the stall. Hierro dashed up behind him, and together they raced across the top of the night market. The crowd below cheered him on as he dashed over ramen stalls, kebab stands, clothing merchants and grocers. Below him, someone had managed to haul a large industrial fan out into the thoroughfare, and angled it upwards. The fan spun to life with a roar, and Hierro jumped off the roof to catch the updraft. Alex followed a second later, and the two of them shot out over the heads of the crowd.

"Thank you, citizens of Avenbrooke!" Alex called as the wind caught his wings. They blew out over the end of the night market, and saw Matsuri's police car screech around a corner, hot in pursuit of the Coquille's getaway van. She slowed down when she saw Alex and Hierro and stuck her hand out the window to wave them down. Alex landed with a gasp on the sidewalk next to the car, running to keep up. Matsuri reached across the center console to pop the passenger door for him while he threw open the back for Hierro. "Come on!" the sergeant cried and Alex tumbled in. As soon as he pulled the door shut behind him, Matsuri was off, her siren wailing.

Her Raichu chittered in the back seat while Hierro clutched at the upholstery. The Hawlucha had never liked cars, and he _especially_ didn't like speeding cars. They peeled off the main roads and onto shadowy backstreets as the warehouse district loomed. There was a brief moment where they lost the van, but when they shot through the open gates of the freight yard, they saw the vehicle abandoned by the gaping doors of a dilapidated warehouse. Alex was jumping out of the car almost before Matsuri had it in park, wrenching open the back door to let Hierro out. The two of them sprinted across the gravel lot to the warehouse and plunged into the darkness. Alex activated the night vision Jiro Sasaki had built into his suit, but his scan of the warehouse turned up nothing. He switched to thermal imaging, and his shoulders slumped.

"Oh crap."

The sound of their entry had roused the massive colony of Zubat, Golbat, and Crobat that had roosted within. The sound of hundreds of leathery wings filled the air, and Alex could only watch in horror as the poison types descended, their fangs glinting.

A blinding flash lit up the warehouse, and the bat pokemon screamed as electrical current coursed through them. Alex quickly averted his eyes, and when he saw that the harsh light had dimmed, he turned to see Matsuri standing in the doorway. Her Raichu glowed as it discharged power, driving the bats back. Matsuri ran across the warehouse, signaling for Alex to follow. "That won't hold them for long!"

They burst out into the night air again, following the footprints in the gravel. Matsuri broke down the wooden door to the next warehouse with a well-placed kick, but drew up short when she and Alex entered into a quiet, softly lit space lined with wooden bedframes stacked three high. The sergeant scanned the open expanse and scowled. "Looks like we found the main den."

As they stalked down the aisles of beds, Alex saw that many were occupied. All of the sleepers were wan and ashen-skinned, with deep dark circles beneath their eyes. He knew the effects of dream dust when he saw it. It was a powerful and addictive opiate, distilled from traditional morphine, but strengthened with Breloom spores and crystalized Musharna smoke to ensure a deep sleep. Occasionally, one of the sleepers would stir, their body struggling to rise to consciousness only to fall back under the heavy blanket of the drug.

"Are we going to arrest all these people?" Alex murmured as they padded across the concrete floor.

Matsuri sighed. "I don't know. I have to take as many names as I can, it's department policy. The CCPD tries to help, but so many of these addicts slip through the cracks. Sometimes it's easier to just get them off the streets."

"It's not like they're hurting anyone."

"I don't make the laws, Hawlucha Man. I want to help but… sometimes it's out of our hands."

"Hawlucha… Man?" One of the sleepers struggled to rise, his pale hands grasping the edges of his bunk with white-knuckled intensity.

"You go on," Alex told Matsuri. "I'll catch up in a second." He and Hierro crouched next to the bunk, and he couldn't help but gasp when he saw Pierre Espalier, his face gaunt, and his veins beginning to blacken with the effects of too much dream dust. "Arceus, Pierre, what are you doing here?"

"The Baron," Pierre muttered, his words slurred. "He keeps me here. Between jobs. Keeps the voices quiet." Alex saw the air shimmer as Pierre waved his hand, a tiny wall forming and breaking apart just as quickly. "I'm all under control. Out of the way."

"This is…" Alex struggled to find the words. "Pierre, this is terrible. It's _inhumane_. What happened to Mimsy?"

The esper raised his other hand, and Alex saw that a pokeball was tied to his wrist with a leather cord. "Mimsy doesn't like to see me like this. I sleep, he sleeps too. Different sleeps."

"I'm going to get you out of here. I'm going to get you help."

Pierre jerked his hand in a gesture of dismissal. "He'd just bring me back. The Baron. Signed a contract." The esper sighed, his mouth tugging up at the corners into a lazily smile. "You can't… sometimes you can't… not everybody can be saved. Should go, Hawlucha Man. Let me have the dreams. Can't hurt anybody in the dreams." The mime slipped back into the drugged slumber of the dream dust, his face slackening and the tension leaving his muscles.

Alex slammed his fist against the concrete floor and winced at the pain. "Damn it," he muttered. "Damn it, I should be able to save you. I should have…" Hierro put a hand on Alex's shoulder and jerked his head in the direction Matsuri had gone. There was a crash, and Alex jumped to his feet and took off at a run.

He heard a gun go off, once, twice, and more glass shattered. Hierro bolted ahead of him, and he heard the Hawlucha shriek as Matsuri's Raichu cried out in anger. There was another flash, a muffled curse, and then Alex rounded the corner to see Antoine clutching the bullet wound in his shoulder, and Thomas struggling to rise from Hierro's attack. Their Breloom and Sabeleye twitched on the warehouse floor, paralyzed by Matsuri's Raichu. The sergeant stood with her gun pointing at Antoine. "Last chance to come quietly," she barked.

Antoine snarled in wordless rage and lurched forward, his uninjured arm drawing back to strike. Alex was on him in an instant, driving his knee into Antoine's chest, his elbow into the man's injured shoulder. "No more chances," Alex growled. When the chemist staggered back, Alex unclipped the batons from his belt and cracked them across the man's jaw. He twirled them in his hands and drove the blunted tips into Antoine's abdomen as he flicked the switch to engage the stun function. Antoine's back arched as the electric current coursed through him, and then collapsed in a heap. Alex pivoted on his back foot as Thomas moved his hands, and struck the back of the man's head. The second Coquille dropped like a stone.

"Thanks for the help," Matsuri said. "Avenbrooke's a better place now that these scumbags aren't on the streets."

Alex nodded to the sergeant and clicked his tongue at Hierro. Together, the two of them walked past the rows of beds while Matsuri called in for a prisoner transport and medical personnel for all the addicts under the spell of the drug. Alex kept walking through the broken warehouse door and out into the night. He didn't stop until the warehouse district was far behind him, until he could find a quiet alleyway and a sturdy fire escape, until he was on a distant rooftop far, far away from the unsettling quiet of the warehouses and the equally unsettling bustle of the night market.

He didn't need to be there when the police arrived to escort out the somnambulists with their blackening veins and vacant eyes, to watch them loaded into a hospital transport to be whisked away to Metro General, or the detention cells nearby. He didn't need to watch the narcotics division pack up the Coquilles' laboratory and confiscate their chemicals, the chemicals that had ruined Pierre on the Baron's orders.

He didn't need to see it, because he knew what would happened next.


	14. Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

Alex glanced down at his phone display, then at to the number plate on the building in front of him, and then back to his phone again. The numbers matched, and he hadn't been sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn't a seemingly vacant used car lot attached to a machine shop. Hierro looked up at him and shrugged.

Two days ago, Alex had gotten a text on the burner phone Jiro had given him, the first communication he had received from the any of other heroes in two months. Instead of a message from Blaziken Man, it had simply read: "This is the Hammer. Come to the following location. Wear training gear." A minute later, he had received a second text from the same number with an address and a date.

It had taken them the better part of the morning, but Alex and Hierro had crossed the Umber River, made three subway transfers, and finally made their way up to the upper west side. Alex raised his fist and rapped the door three times. He heard movement within, and the sound of several heavy door bolts being thrown back. The sliding metal door rumbled aside, and a Conkeldurr loomed up in front of them. The fighting type looked them up and down. "Are they here?" a voice boomed from around a corner. There was a clatter, and the Conkeldurr rolled its eyes. "Send them in, Siegfried, for Arceus's sake!"

Siegfried stepped aside and motioned for them to follow, leading them through the main workshop, where two expensive sports cars were propped on hydraulic lifts. In a second work room, Johannes Schlagen threw aside a newspaper and hoisted himself to his feet. "Hawlucha Man! Good to see you!" Alex saw Johannes's arm was still in a splint, but the man seemed otherwise in good spirits.

"And you, Hammer! But please, call me Alex." He glanced around the workshop, where chrome beams and heavy iron weights were stacked in organized piles. "Did you need my help? I haven't heard from any of the other heroes in weeks, and I was starting to wonder if—"

Johannes cut him off with a wave of his hand. "There's no need to concern yourself, lad. Jiro, Lakshmi and I were simply waiting for the dust to settle. In the interim, I thought it prudent to spend some time with each of you younger heroes, to see what you can do." He led Alex out through the back of the workshop to a long rectangle of packed earth, hidden behind a screen of junked cars. "Normally, I'd handle your training myself, but…" The Hammer glanced down at his broken arm and shrugged. "When you're my age, you don't heal quite so fast. I'll have my pokemon take over instead."

Siegfried lumbered out into the yard after them, and the Hammer stuck two fingers into his mouth and whistled. "Albrecht, come on out!" His Hariyama sashayed out from among the cars and took up a position next to Siegfried at the far end of the packed earth.

Alex glanced at Johannes. "What kind of training did you have in mind?"

"Oh, I've always preferred the hands-on, sink-or-swim approach." Johannes snapped the fingers of his good hand, and his two pokemon surged forward. Hierro shrieked and tackled Alex out of the way, and they both sprang to their feet. Alex unzipped his windbreaker and cast it aside, leaving him in a t-shirt and loose, comfortable cotton pants, the sort of clothes he had worn when he was still training in martial arts years ago. A shared glance with Hierro communicated all he needed to.

The Hammer was unlikely to let his pokemon cause him serious harm, but it didn't seem like they were going to pull any punches either. Neither he nor Hierro had the raw strength necessary to stop their opponents' blows, so their best hope was to dodge and look for an opening. Johannes had trained his pokemon to be respectably fast, but Alex and Hierro were definitely faster.

Siegfried managed to turn around first and came at Alex with a powerful punch. Alex had a split second to be grateful the Conkeldurr was not using its concrete slabs in this bout before he dropped his weight and rolled under the strike, lashing up at the fighting type's forearm with a well-placed kick when he passed below Siegfried's center of mass. He heard the Hammer make a surprised exclamation as the Conkeldurr recoiled. Siegfried gritted his teeth and raised both arms above his head before bringing them crashing back down where Alex had just been an instant before. Alex jumped to the left and sidestepped around the Conkeldurr before jumping up and delivering two swift kicks to the center of its back.

Hierro screamed as he raced towards Albrecht, bounding up and over the shell of a car to strike at the Hariyama's upper torso. Albrecht took two hasty steps back and thrust out its open palm, knocking Hierro out of the air. The Hawlucha tried to sweep Albrecht's legs out from under him, but the Hariyama's prodigious bulk allowed Albrecht to keep his balance. Hierro hissed in irritation and puffed out his feathers before leaping back to try again.

Alex struggled to avoid Siegfried's powerful strikes, knowing that if any one of them landed, he would be effectively out of the fight. The Conkeldurr telegraphed all of its attacks, but even knowing what was coming, Alex was hard-pressed to evade. None of the blows he managed to land seemed to faze the fighting type; Alex knew he was far out of his weight class, and Hierro was too. Raw force wasn't going to help them this time.

Alex grinned. Unless…

He whistled to Hierro. "Follow my lead!" The two of them dashed to the middle of the Hammer's proving ground and stood back to back. Siegfried rushed at them from the north while Albrecht ran from the south. "We're going to do a little science experiment," Alex muttered. "On my mark." He saw the Conkeldurr's muscles tense, saw the fighting type reach the point of no return, where it would carry through the strike even if Alex dodged. "Now!"

He and Hierro bolted to the side just as Siegfried's fist shot out. It missed Alex and Hierro completely, but Siegfried was unable to stop the motion before his fist collided with Albrecht coming from the other side. The Hariyama was sent flying backwards and struggled to rise while Siegfried whirled on his opponents. The moment he turned, Alex and Hierro shot forward and jumped up, delivering a double uppercut to the Conkeldurr's jaw. Siegfried roared as he staggered back, clutching his jaw.

"Enough!" Johannes boomed, following it up with a deep belly laugh. "You never fail to impress, Hawlucha Man! How did you come up with that move?"

"One of the first things you taught me, remember?" Alex grinned and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Back when we were fighting the Iron Boyar, you said you were going to show me what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object."

Johannes threw back his head and laughed again. "Well I'll be damned! I'm a better teacher than I thought!"

Once Siegfried and Albrecht had recovered, the Hammer had them fight another two bouts. By the end, all four combatants were struggling for breath, and their muscles ached. When Johannes called an end to the third round, Hierro sank to the ground and flopped backward. Siegfried lowered himself on his haunches beside the flying type and did the same.

Johannes smiled and motioned Alex to follow him inside while the pokemon rested. They sat on either side of a rickety kitchen table while a small coffeemaker burbled. Alex rolled his shoulder to ease the aching muscles and regarded the Hammer for a moment. "Well, that was invigorating, but now are you finally going to tell me what's going on?"

"How do you take your coffee?"

"Black, two sugars. And don't dodge the question. It's been two months since the Sins' attack, and I've been in the dark the whole time. You all said you'd be in touch, but I haven't heard a damn thing."

The Hammer lowered himself into his chair. "We needed to be sure it was safe."

"Safe? I'm out there risking my life every night trying to clean up the mess the Sins left us with. _Safe_ isn't even part of the equation. How can I be safe if I don't know what I'm up against?"

"Alex," Johannes said. "There's more at play now than you understand. The best place for you right now is in Avenbrooke serving as a check against the Baron and his men. That's where you're as safe as you can be in our line of work. The entire balance of power in Clarus City has shifted, and there are now forces in play that are far more dangerous than anything Jiro, Lakshmi and I thought we would be up against when we began this. I was in the room when Marcus Braun died. I saw how it happened. Believe me, he was not an easy man to kill."

Alex leaned back in his chair. "Then start at the beginning and bring me up to speed. Who was the woman that went into Nimbus Tower? How did Sloth die? Why have the other Sins gone quiet?"

"I suppose it's best to begin with Archangel."

"What's Joshua got to do with this?"

"How much do you know about espers?"

Alex shrugged. "As much as anyone else, I guess. Some people develop psychic powers, just like psychic type pokemon. There's probably something genetic to it, but there's other factors that we don't really understand. Who gets powers and who doesn't is basically random. But the odds are like one in a few hundred thousand, right?"

"More or less. The world governments loosely classify espers on a scale of one through five. Most class ones never even realize they have powers. They might just feel like they have good intuition or hand eye coordination."

"But it's actually weak psychic voodoo?"

"Essentially, yes. Most espers that we know of as such are class twos. It's a fairly broad classification, so how powerful they actually are can vary. Anything from moving bottle caps with their brain to telepathy to all-out mind control fall under the class two umbrella."

"All right. So Joshua…"

"Archangel is a class three."

"Oh."

"You need to understand that the difference between a class one and a class two is immense, and the gap between even the strongest class two and a class three is far greater. Fortunately, the higher class an esper is, the rarer they are. To the best of my knowledge, there are less than fifteen class threes in the world, and the military and government of whatever region they are born in monitors them closely, usually in a laboratory setting. Archangel was taken from his family at an early age and was raised in a facility where his powers could be studied and honed."

"He was raised to be a living weapon."

"To put it cynically, yes."

"That's fucked up, man."

The Hammer took a long sip drink of coffee to gather his thoughts. "Believe me, I had no knowledge of this until just a few years ago. I find it as abhorrent as you do. The project was shuttered and Archangel was released back out into the world. He's still under close observation by the government, but there has been an attempt to allow him to live something approaching a normal life."

"Okay, so Archangel is some crazy powerful esper. What's this got to do with Sloth and Nimbus Tower?"

The Hammer sighed. "Archangel was not the only class three involved in this program. There was another, a woman, several years older. While Archangel's strengths lie in telekinesis, this woman was a powerful telepath. Specifically, she excelled at mind control. She was kept in a hermetically sealed room and allowed next to no contact with any living person for years, for fear of what she would make them do. It made her go a little unhinged."

"Can't say I really blame her, under the circumstances."

Johannes nodded to concede the point and continued. "Her name was Marinette, but her codename was Dominion, and by all accounts, she preferred that. When the program studying her and Archangel was shut down, the government tried to keep her under observation, but she quickly became impossible to track. Every time someone was sent after her, they would vanish, and if they ever reappeared, it was months later, with no memories of the intervening time. Her ex-handlers were willing to assume she just wanted to be left alone." He grunted. "Turns out they were off the mark."

"So she showed up a Nimbus Tower. What happened next?"

"She just waltzed in and told the Sins to stop. When Braun tried to resist, she took control of his Slaking and hurled him out the window. A few minutes later, she had the other six all working for her." Johannes drained his coffee mug and set the pot to percolate again. "I'll be honest with you, lad. This woman terrifies me in a way that Marcus Braun never could. The Sins, the Baron, the Kuromori, all of them are dangerous, but they're known quantities. We knew how they act, we know their patterns, and we know how the organizations work. They can surprise us, but they ultimately have a method of operations they adhere to. Jiro, Lakshmi and I have spent the past two months trying to connect the dots on Dominion." Johannes shook his head. "There _is_ no pattern. There's no method to the madness."

Alex scowled. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that she's capricious. She's unpredictable and erratic. None of her actions make any kind of damned _sense_. She's been content keeping to the shadows for years, until one day, as near as we can assume, she just decided to topple the Sins as the dominant power and take over Clarus City, but then she burned herself out and circled the wagons. She hasn't made a move, and she's letting the day to day operations run on autopilot while her organization crumbles."

"So when I didn't hear from you…"

"It's because there was nothing to report." Johannes drummed the fingers of his left hand on the table. "Jiro also thought it was wise to keep you and the other heroes out of harm's way. He was willing to draw all of her attention like a lightning rod if it meant keeping the rest of us safe. He told me he didn't want her to compromise all of the city's heroes in one fell swoop."

"He thought he would be compromised?"

Johannes nodded gravely. "And if he was, he had plans for the rest of us to stop him. Fortunately, she hasn't risen to the bait."

Alex drained the last of his coffee. "So the less we knew, the better."

"Precisely." Johannes rose and refilled their mugs. "But the time for playing cautiously is over. No more keeping our allies in the dark. From now on, you will know everything we know. Our foes coordinate and work together, and it's about damn time we started doing the same."

"Are you training the other heroes too?"

"Echo and I have had several sessions, yes. And I have been training Isabelle and Archangel for several years, since we became heroes of Clarus City. The Phantom, try as I might, has been uncooperative."

Alex smirked. "It seems like he doesn't play well with others."

Johannes snorted. "Apparently so. But after seeing you in action, it's clear you don't need me to teach you how to fight. Your technique is solid, your instincts are sharp, and most importantly, you're resourceful. Everyone can benefit from a bit of sparring practice every now and then, but I'd say you're a natural at this." He looked out through the open door of the work room to where Hierro was chittering away excitedly to Albrecht and Siegfried. "That Hawlucha of yours is certainly something. How long have you two been together?"

Alex shrugged. "About eleven years now?"

"Oh? Sounds like there's a story to tell."

"Maybe a short one." Alex leaned back in his chair. "I never went on a journey. I'm from Unova, and the scars from the wars from when my parents were kids… well. It's not as safe as it used to be going out on a journey, so my parents kept me home in Icirrus City. Like any twelve year old kid, I wanted to be a trainer with a pokemon of my own, but my parents wouldn't let me go catch one." He took a sip of coffee. "So one day, the circus comes to town, right? This Kalosian troupe, and they've got everything. Acrobats, clowns, Pyroar jumping through hoops, a Riolu bending steel beams, the works. And one of the acts has this Hawlucha. Even from the stands, I could tell he wasn't cooperating with the tamers at all, that he just didn't want to be there. He was sick of being whipped and yelled at and made to do stupid tricks.

"So a couple days later, I sneak out of town to the marshes like I always did as a kid. I wasn't supposed to but…" Alex grinned and shrugged again. "I was twelve. Anyway, I'm wandering around the marsh, and I see the Hawlucha from the circus trapped in a thorn bush. He was panicking, and he was only getting more stuck. It took me a while to calm him down, and by the time I was done I was covered in scratches, but eventually I got him out. I could tell that he'd run away, and he sure as hell didn't want to go back. So I counted my pocket money and I made him a proposition."

Johannes's eyes twinkled as he listened, and Alex grew more animated in the telling. "I had just enough saved up for a pokeball, so I rushed back into town, bought one, and hurried back. The Hawlucha was waiting for me and… well, I caught him. I hid him from my parents at first, at least while the circus people were still in town. Once they left and weren't looking for him anymore, I showed my parents, and after some cajoling, they let me keep him. Hierro and I have been together ever since."

"Remarkable," Johannes rumbled. "No wonder your bond is so strong. You grew up together."

Alex looked out the door at his partner and smiled. "There's no one else I'd rather have at my back. He's my best friend."

"And so you trained together?"

"Well, I'd been doing martial arts and gymnastics and stuff since I was little. But once I got Hierro, yeah, I started paying attention to how he moved, how he fought. We're both small and light, so it made sense to copy him. And then when I became Hawlucha Man, I needed him to teach me how to fly."

"Remarkable," Johannes said again. He stood up from the small table. "Come with me. There's something I want you to see." He led Alex into another garage in the back of his workshop, previously hidden from view.

A large metal structure stood in the middle of the room, composed of gleaming chrome pipes and half-covered in heavy metal plating. Tanks of hydraulic fluid stood in neat rows nearby, and Alex's eyes went wide. "Is that…?"

"The Hammer armor, mark three," Johannes said. "Braun and his Slaking did a number on the old model, so I had to start over. It's taken me longer than I'd like, but when you only have one good hand, well." He glanced down at his sling. "You do the best you can. Siegfried and Albrecht have tried to help as much as they're able, but their hands aren't made for delicate work like this. I'd like for it to be ready once I'm healed up, but at my current progress, that doesn't seem likely. But if I were to have an assistant…"

Alex could hardly contain his excitement. "Are you asking me to help you?"

"Jiro says you're doing mechanical engineering at AIT. If you're looking for a little part time work on the side, I would certainly appreciate it. I can compensate you for—"

"Absolutely," Alex said, without a second's hesitation. "Just say the word and I'll be here to help. I'd be happy to! Honored to!" The long commute be damned, he was getting a chance to work side by side with the Hammer. _Again_.

Johannes led him back outside to where Hierro was waiting. "The summer term at AIT is coming up," he said. "And most graduate students take on internships, yes? Have you secured something yet?"

Alex blushed. "Uh… no, not yet. My night gig is kind of getting in the way of, well, everything, honestly."

Johannes nodded. "Let me make a few calls, I'll see what I can do. I have my share of well-connected friends, and there are a few favors I can call in. You know," he said, "I was an AIT man myself, once upon a time."

"What?" Alex cried.

"There will be plenty of time for stories later," Johannes replied. "I don't want to keep you all day. Until my arm is healed, Clarus City is already down one hero. I need to give you some time to rest up."

As Alex and Hierro left the Hammer's auto shop, Alex glanced back over his shoulder. "Just a sec. Johannes, what _are_ you? These sports cars, the metal suit, the well-connected friends, they've got to come from somewhere."

The older man laughed. "Me? I'm just a mechanic! Now go on, get home. You'll need to unwind if you're going on patrol tonight." He glanced down at Hierro. "You keep each other safe, you hear?"

Hierro snapped off a brusque salute and waved to the Hammer's pokemon looming in the doorway. As Alex and Hierro walked back towards the subway stop, Alex reached down and smoothed Hierro's feathered crest. He was ready to get back into the fight for Clarus City, to do more than just beat back the Baron's hired thugs. The idea of Dominion gave him the creeps, but Alex felt that when faced with of the heroes of Clarus City, not even an esper that strong stood a chance.

The first thing the Hammer had taught him had been a physics lesson. The second was advice that Alex had taken to heart: always bet on the heroes of Clarus City.


	15. Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

Wyatt Reeves knew he wasn't a good man.

On his best day, he figured he was a righteous man. He was definitely on the good guys' side, but he was no Blaziken Man. He came from a long line of lawmen, men who had always stood in the light, the shield of the people they were sworn to protect. Wyatt had fallen out of that light, and he knew the blame for that fell squarely on his shoulders alone. He was doing everything he could to be worthy of his family name again. He wasn't a good man, but by Arceus, he was trying.

He cracked the butt of his revolver across the jaw of the bound Kuromori assassin and knocked the chair he was tied to off balance. When the ninja fell to the ground, he delivered a sharp kick to the Kuromori's abdomen with the tip of his steel-toed boot. "Tell me what you know, you son of a bitch."

He was willing to admit he could probably be trying a little harder.

Geronimo crouched silently in the shadows nearby, the Nuzleaf's eyes tracking each subtle movement of the bound Kuromori assassin. Everything about his partner was silent. Wyatt didn't think he'd ever heard Geronimo make so much as a peep. Other Nuzleaf did, from what he'd heard, but Geronimo preferred to keep his peace. What Wyatt did know was that if the Kuromori bastard so much as twitched the wrong way, Geronimo would cover him with a barrage of incendiary seeds.

The Kuromori glared up at Wyatt, as silent as Geronimo. Wyatt sank down to a crouch beside the assassin. "All right, partner. I've tried to be civilized with you. I know Saito is moving pieces 'round the board, and I'm getting real damn tired of being two steps behind, so tell me what your marching orders are before I start losing my temper."

The ninja spat. "I know nothing."

"Well that's too damn bad." Wyatt flicked open his revolver and slid six bullets into the chamber. "Last chance to try and think of something." When the Kuromori turned his head away, Wyatt shrugged. "Can't say I didn't warn you, partner." He fired five bullets into the floor around the assassin's body, before firing the sixth at the ninja's torso. The casing broke apart the instant the bullet left the gun's muzzle, sending the small needle into the man's chest. The tiny electrical device in the needle sent out a small shock that caught on the web of Galvantula threads the first five bullets had created around his body. The assassin convulsed as hundreds of volts of electricity coursed through his body.

Wyatt sighed as the man's eyes rolled back in his head. As he walked off the abandoned factory floor, Geronimo fell into step beside him. The Nuzleaf glanced up at his partner, and Wyatt shrugged. "I know it was overkill, but he was starting to piss me off." He tugged at his hat brim and slotted another bullet into his gun. He raised the revolver to the sky and fired. The bullet made a loud shrieking noise as it arced skywards, and Wyatt heard distant police sirens that would soon be heading to his location to pick up the (hopefully) unconscious Kuromori.

Geronimo jumped up into the bed of Wyatt's pickup truck, perching on the large toolbox full of locks, keys, drills and cylinders. Wyatt folded up the tarp that had covered the Kuromori on their drive out here and stuck it under his smaller toolbox before swinging into the driver's seat. The Reeves Locksmith truck started with a groan, and Wyatt guided it out of the abandoned industrial park and back towards the heart of Ridgewood.

Wyatt took off his stetson hat and put it on the passenger seat. The Gunslinger persona had come about after a series of unfortunate circumstances and a rather abrupt fall from grace. Like every Reeves man going back as long as anyone cared to remember, Wyatt had been a lawman. The titles had changed over the years, from sheriff to detective to investigator to policeman, but there was a storied tradition of his ancestors protecting and serving their community. Wyatt had been a sergeant in the Ninth Precinct of the CCPD, and had the dubious honor of being the only Reeves man to abuse his position of power.

Wyatt Reeves had been a dirty cop.

It had started small enough, turning a blind eye to drug runners in exchange for a small cut of the profits and the like. It had just been enough to cover his expenses. But then the drug runners kicked him higher up their chain of command, eventually all the way to Eva Muller, even before she became known as Gluttony. The takes had gotten bigger, but the things Muller was asking him to do became harder for his conscience to stomach. When Marcus Braun took control of the underworld and it was all the police could do to keep the city from devolving into total anarchy, Wyatt saw the way the wind was turning (and his comrades in arms dropping left and right) and cashed in his chips with Gluttony to became her obedient little Lilipup. Eventually, the CCPD wrestled back a measure of control, right about the time Wyatt was starting to overplay his hand.

He was caught, went to court, and was only spared a prison sentence thanks to a few connections on the force. He sank into an alcoholic haze for several months, until some of Muller's thugs came knocking at his door again. When he refused to answer to Muller's beck and call, the situation escalated, and Wyatt had been forced to use the pistol that he had (illegally) taken with him when he had been dishonorably discharged from the police.

The cops responded to a neighbor's panicked call, but the two thugs had rap sheets the length of Wyatt's arm, and the lead detective on the case had been a friend, so his gun had been confiscated and the whole thing was quietly swept under the rug. But the confrontation had changed something in Wyatt, and he was no longer content to drink himself into a stupor. He had failed in his charge to protect Clarus City, and it was time he made up for it.

He privately contacted the captain of the Sixth and arranged for special dispensation to carry his grandfather's old revolver. The captain had been hesitant at first, but Wyatt had always been the best shot on the force, and precautions were set that if Wyatt's work as a vigilante ever crossed the line, the police would be well within their rights to take him down.

Or at least, that was the story the captain was telling. The real story was that Wyatt happened to know a few times the captain had been on Eva Muller's payroll too, and he had threatened to go public unless the captain stayed out of his way and let Wyatt serve his penance. As far as Wyatt was concerned, sometimes it was more important to be righteous than to be good.

Once that had been settled, Wyatt took up his maternal grandfather's trade as a locksmith to pay the bills. He'd always been fascinated by locks, the elegant artistry of all the delicate pieces fitting together. It was for the same reason that he loved his paternal grandfather's revolver, with its sliding latch and spinning cylinder, the way each bullet slotted perfectly into the chamber, the satisfying click of the firing hammer when he feathered the trigger.

The police radio he wasn't supposed to have crackled to life on the dashboard. "Police pursuit on Twelfth towards Belfry. Subjects are in three black sedans and one SUV. Likely Kuromori, responding officers are urged to use caution."

Wyatt quickly calculated the distance in his head before reaching behind him and sliding open the rear window of the cab. "Hold on tight, Geronimo!" He floored the accelerator and wrenched the wheel of his truck around to take a side street. With his left hand he checked his bandolier, counting how many of each type of bullet he had left. Enough to stop a few more ninja assholes, probably. The old truck protested as Wyatt swung onto Belfry Street and double-parked on the wrong side of the road. He could only hope that no overzealous meter maid on the graveyard shift would brave the confusion and write him a ticket.

Wyatt settled his stetson on his head and rested his hand on the wooden butt of his revolver as he strode down the last hundred yards to the intersection of Belfry and Twelfth. The Gunslinger settled his stance as Geronimo bounded up a fire escape to perch atop the snarling stone Druddigon on Ridgewood Credit and Trust's façade. The distant police sirens were getting louder, and Wyatt could hear the squeal of tires coming down the street. He had figured the Kuromori would make for the Niji Kumo Temple, where the Johtonian monks were rumored to aid the assassin clan in exchange for generous contributions from Saito Kuromori.

But to get there, they'd have to go through the Gunslinger.

The black vehicles were coming into view now, and Wyatt counted at least four police cars in pursuit. He raised his gun, flicked the hammer back, and pulled the trigger.

The bullet skimmed across the ground and embedded itself in the pavement just in front of the first black sedan. A second later, as the car's fuel tank passed over it, the bullet exploded. The back of the car was flung into the air by the force of the blast, and the overturned vehicle skidded across the ground for several yards before coming to rest mere feet from where Wyatt stood.

The second car raced forward, only to have its windshield shattered by a barrage of seeds from Geronimo. The driver lost control, and Wyatt shot two more bullets into the car's tires, puncturing them and causing it to spin out and crash into a fire hydrant. The third car was accelerating now, trying to run the Gunslinger down before he could cause any more damage. Wyatt tutted and spun the cylinder of his revolver, shattering the windshield with two rapid fire shots to the same point of impact. With the glass out of the way, he fired his sixth bullet, one of his sleeping rounds, into the driver's neck and stepped out of the way as the car careened past him, clipped a light post, and finally collided with a stone stoop, cracking the masonry but stopping the car.

"Yee-haw!" the Gunslinger whooped. If he'd learned anything from those fancy uptown heroes, it was that you had to keep up the persona, no matter how hot the fight got.

The SUV was still barreling forward, and Wyatt was out of bullets. He had enough time to dive out of the way, but he steeled his nerve and held his ground. As the van hurtled towards a narrow cross street, something raced in front of it, and with a shriek of rending metal, the front of the SUV was cleaved in two. The engine sputtered and exploded, and the Cavalier's armor gleamed as they whirled their Rapidash around.

"Thought I heard you coming," the Gunslinger said.

"I AM NOT HERE FOR YOU," the Cavalier boomed. The police cars surrounded the mangled Kuromori vehicles, their guns drawn. Stunned and rattled Kuromori assassins were stumbling out of the less damaged cars, but the Cavalier paid them no heed. The cerulean tassel of the Cavalier's Honedge was wrapped around their unarmored right wrist and forearm, and they used that to point at a nearby rooftop. "I HAVE BEEN CHASING HER." A shape detached from the shadows of a nearby rooftop, melting from the gloom and disappearing into the next patch of darkness.

"Well hell," the Gunslinger drawled, slotting bullets into his revolver. "Vixen. We just walked into an ambush, didn't we?"

"IT WOULD SEEM WE'VE BEEN OUTFOXED."

"Please never make a pun again."

A broad-shouldered man stepped out from the open doors of the Kuromori van. He slowly raised his hands over his head as the police officers went for their guns. "Easy now," the man said with smirk. "Don't go getting excited. Gunshots make my cousin jumpy."

The Gunslinger gritted his teeth as his mind worked furiously. If Tarou Kuromori were here along with the Vixen, then the ninjas had banked hard on this operation. Saito Kuromori's son lacked his father's subtle mind and his uncle's conniving acumen, but what he lacked in brains he more than made up for in brawn. All Kuromori operatives were skilled in hand to hand combat, but most favored a limber acrobatic style that allowed them to stay in motion and keep their foes wrong-footed. Tarou, on the other hand, was a brawler, plain and simple.

"I'll focus on him," Wyatt murmured to the Cavalier. "You keep your eye on the Vixen." He saw the knight's helmet rise and fall slightly, though the Cavalier's eyes never left the rooftops.

"I'll admit, you took us by surprise," Tarou went on. His eyes flicked up Twelfth, but Wyatt didn't waste time tracking his gaze. Tarou wasn't famous for his poker face. He was stalling, waiting for reinforcements. Wyatt had stopped the convoy earlier than the Kuromori had hoped, and that meant that the jaws of the trap weren't completely closed yet.

He could use that.

Wyatt slowly reached up and tugged the brim of his stetson down over his eyes, drumming his fingers along the rim in a specific pattern. He saw Geronimo stiffen atop his perch, and the Nuzleaf crept back into the shadows. No one had paid the Gunslinger's silent partner any mind, and that gave them a chance to get out ahead of this. "It's a shame you all had to get involved," Tarou was saying. "Our only target was the Cavalier. But since you're here…" He flicked his wrist, and a slender throwing knife appeared from his sleeve. Tarou turned on his heel and hurled the knife through the eye of the nearest officer. The other surviving Kuromori had managed to gather their wits, and in the brief spell of confusion, they drew their weapons and fell on the assembled police officers.

Gunshots cracked and knives flashed as the ninjas struck. Wyatt whirled around, emptying his cylinder of the six sleeping bullets he had loaded. Six Kuromori dropped. The bullet casings were designed to break apart when leaving the muzzle, propelling the darts inside forward. The darts were laced with a fast-acting neurotoxin of refined Ariados venom that paralyzed the victim and rendered them catatonic. Unlike some of his other bullets, these weren't very lethal, but they did sting quite a bit.

Tarou and his Machamp fought side by side, lashing out at the remaining officers. The Cavalier swung their Rapidash around, battering away a leaping Sableye with their shield and lashing out at a Weavile with their Honedge. The Gunslinger reloaded and fired five bullets into the darkness behind the melee, taking cover behind one of the wrecked vehicles as he waited. A moment later, several shapes passed under the distant streetlights. Wyatt inhaled, held his breath, and then fired.

The electric web his bullets had woven flared briefly as several of the Kuromori reinforcements dropped, their bodies convulsing. Several more fell to their knees, but a few had managed to make it through. Before they reached the rest of their comrades, a barrage of seeds struck down the first two and the Mienshao racing along with them, and a pulsing indigo orb collided with a leaping Toxicroak. By the time Geronimo had landed, Wyatt had reloaded his gun with sleeping darts to pick off any other stragglers.

The Cavalier had rallied the surviving police. The sergeant who had led them had fallen in the first counterattack, and no one was bold enough to try and countermand the Cavalier's booming authority. Their Rapidash darted up and down the street, and their Honedge hummed as they lashed out. The Cavalier's armor and shield were pitted with marks from the Kuromori's bullets, but they gave no quarter. More of the assassins jumped from the rooftop, and Wyatt emptied his gun before they could interfere. As he hastened to reload, another figure jumped out over the street. Unlike the black cloth hoods most of the Kuromori wore, this one wore a carved wooden mask made to look like a snarling canine.

"Look out!" Wyatt shouted as the Vixen leapt towards the Cavalier. The Cavalier's Honedge tightened its grip on their forearm and whipped the knight's arm around in time to parry the Vixen's daggers. The Vixen slid across the pavement, and a burst of light shot from her belt. Her Ninetales appeared in a flash and pounced at the Cavalier's Rapidash. Though the warhorse was well-trained, it shied away from the fox even as Tarou closed in. The muzzle of his gun flashed, the bullets pinging off the Cavalier's shield.

The remaining Kuromori had closed ranks on the Ridgewood police, cutting them off from the Cavalier. Wyatt saw the knight turn the dark eye slits of their helmet to regard him, and the armored hero gave a brusque nod. They kicked their Rapidash into a trot, curving away from Tarou as the Vixen sprinted after them. Several of the other Kuromori took off after her. Tarou reloaded and took aim, but Wyatt shot the gun from his hand. The mangled piece of metal fell to the ground, and Tarou clutched at his fingers. "What the…?"

The Gunslinger smirked. "Yippie-ki-yay, bitch."

Tarou snarled in impotent rage and fumbled for his second sidearm. The heir apparent of the Kuromori clan fired off a shot as soon as he had freed the gun from the holster. Wyatt heard the bullet ping off a railing some ways down the street. He clicked his tongue and shot Tarou's hand again. "Didn't anyone ever tell you shooting from the hip only works in the pictures?" Wyatt spun his gun around his index finger and fired off three shots from the hip, a Galvantula thread bullet to each of Tarou's shoulders and the trigger bullet to the center of his chest. The Gunslinger emptied the spent casings and slotted six more bullets into his revolver as the electric current coursed through Tarou's body. "You best be gettin' on home, boy," Wyatt drawled. "Your father's going to want to know just how badly you fucked this up."

"You'll pay for this," Tarou snarled through clenched teeth.

Wyatt scoffed and shot the ground at Tarou's feet. A small explosion cracked the pavement, making Tarou flinch back. "Well, ain't I just quaking in my boots," Wyatt replied.

"Kill him!" Tarou barked, and tossed a smoke bomb at his feet.

The remaining Kuromori broke off from their fight with the surviving police officers and raced towards Wyatt. He settled his stance and fired, but the Kuromori and their pokemon were wise to his game now. They zigzagged across the remaining distance, making themselves a harder target. His gun clicked as it cycled back to an empty chamber, and Wyatt swore. He was useless in hand to hand combat, and there was no time to reload.

It was a damn stupid way to die.

A spray of seeds flashed across the street in front of Wyatt, and then Geronimo was in front of him. The Nuzleaf slid across the pavement and pivoted, leaping towards the Kuromori. A white glow radiated off his body, and a smell like burning chestnuts filled the air. "Geronimo, no!" Wyatt screamed.

There was a flash, a concussive bang, and a rush of air. The few Kuromori still on their feet reeled in the aftermath of the explosion, and Geronimo crashed to the ground, his small body smoldering. Before the Kuromori could gather their wits, the thunder of hooves echoed up and down the street. The Cavalier barreled by, their Honedge glowing with spectral light and their armor stained with blood. The ghostly blade rose and fell in the flat light of the streetlights, and the Kuromori dropped. The Cavalier reined in their Rapidash, and the warhorse's sides heaved with exertion. The Honedge steamed as it drank in the blood along its blade.

Wyatt ran to Geronimo and cupped the grass type's head beneath his hand. The Nuzleaf's eyelids fluttered weakly, and Wyatt let out a relieved sigh. "I thought we agreed we weren't gonna to use that technique anymore, partner." Geronimo shrugged and managed to smirk. "Yeah, yeah," Wyatt said. "You saved my ass again. You can gloat about it later. You going to be okay?" Geronimo nodded, and sank back into unconsciousness. Wyatt returned him to his pokeball, turned to the surviving police officers, and gestured up and down the street. "Can y'all handle this?"

One of the officers nodded. "We've radioed for backup already." The officer carefully checked a knife wound on his arm. "Gunslinger… thanks for the help. If you hadn't been here, things could have been a lot worse."

Wyatt privately thought that if he was more like one of those uptown heroes and not just some righteous vigilante, things could have gone a lot better. There would certainly be fewer bodies.

Still, he nodded to the officer and walked over to the Cavalier. They hadn't dismounted, and Wyatt wondered if their legs got sore sitting like that all night. The Cavalier regarded him silently for a moment before disentangling their hand from the Honedge's tassel. "I THOUGHT IT BEST TO DRAW SOME OF THEM OFF."

"It gave us some room to breathe," Wyatt replied. "But if you hadn't come back when you did, Geronimo and I…"

"WOULD BE DEAD, YES."

"Right. Well. Thanks for coming back, partner."

"WE ARE NOT PARTNERS. MY PURSUERS WERE DEALT WITH," the Cavalier said. "I HAD UNFINISHED BUSINESS WITH THE REST OF THEM." Wyatt looked at the blood staining the Rapidash's coat and the Cavalier's greaves. The fire type didn't seem injured. The Cavalier let the silence hang in the air for a moment. "THEY ARE CRIMINALS AND KILLERS. NO ONE WILL MOURN THEM." They paused again. "THE VIXEN GOT AWAY. HER KNIVES WERE POISONED. WITHOUT ARMOR TO STOP HER BLOWS, YOU ALL WOULD HAVE PERISHED."

"Tarou escaped too." Wyatt holstered his gun and sighed. "They're getting bolder. Tarou said he laid the ambush for you. You worried about that?"

"I HAVE NO REASON TO FEAR VERMIN LIKE THE KUROMORI. IF THEY FOCUS ON ME, THEY CANNOT PREY ON THE WEAK."

"Well, I admire your confidence, par—I mean, Cavalier. But they're going to be gunning for us hard now. We need to be ready for them."

"SO LONG AS THEY RISE, I SHALL BEAT THEM BACK." Easy for the Cavalier to say, Wyatt thought. With a suit of armor like that and a warhorse to parade around on, of course the Cavalier was brash. But he was just a crack shot with an antique gun and a partner who always had his back. The Cavalier saw his glance down at Geronimo's pokeball. "SEE TO YOUR PARTNER. I WILL CARRY ON ALONE TONIGHT."

Wyatt nodded and started to walk away. "GUNSLINGER," the Cavalier boomed again. Wyatt turned. "WHEN THEY COME AGAIN, I SHALL BE READY. I HAVE FAITH THAT YOU WILL TOO." They thumped their right fist over their heart in salute. Wyatt reached up and tipped his stetson before limping back to where he had parked.

Sometimes, the path of the righteous man could be a real pain in the ass.


	16. Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

The gleaming face of Sasaki Tower loomed in front of him, a monument to the spirit of industry and innovation. Alex squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and checked again to make sure his shirt was buttoned right. He joined the press of people walking through the bank of revolving doors and let the tide of bodies carry him to the reception desk. A woman in a starched white blouse looked up from her desktop monitor as he approached.

"Yes, can I help you?"

"Hi, yes, I'm here for the internship. The AIT summer internship. In engineering. I'm supposed to start today?" At the woman's blank stare, Alex fished in his pocket for the printout and unfolded it on the desk. "It says to, uh, ask for Ms. Takeda?"

The woman's eyes scanned the paper, and she nodded. "Right, okay, let me dial her extension real quick." She tapped a series of digits into her phone and waited as it rang. "Hello? Ms. Takeda? There's someone at the front desk here for you. He has a document with your signature on it for an internship program?" She fell silent for a moment. "All right. Thank you." The receptionist hung up and glanced back to Alex. "She'll be down in a moment."

Alex waited by the reception desk and watched the queue of Sasaki Industries employees walk into the building. There were suited executives, rank and file office workers in simple but chic business casual clothes, along with engineers and researchers wearing everything from lab coats to jeans to shirts and ties. They all swiped an ID badge to pass through chrome turnstiles to elevators waiting to whisk them off to the upper floors.

One of the elevators slid open to reveal Noriko Takeda. Her heels clicked on the tiled marble floor as she strode out through turnstile and held a tablet computer in one hand. "Mr. Alvarez," she said with a curt nod. She transferred the tablet to her other hand, and held out a small plastic ID card. "You'll need this. Now please follow me." She turned and walked back through the chrome gates, Alex struggling to catch up. They boarded an elevator alone (Alex saw other workers steering clear), and were swept up to a higher floor. As the elevator ascended, Noriko glanced over at him. "We used the picture on file at AIT for your badge. Mr. Sasaki wanted you onboarded as quickly as possible. However, there is still some paperwork we need you to fill out."

The elevator doors slid open, revealing another expanse of marble. Alex heard the faint hum of server banks as Noriko led him past a reception area and into a conference room with a large window overlooking midtown. She tapped a sequence on her tablet and set it down on the table before gesturing to a seat. "Please take a moment to read through the information there. It's standard disclosure and privacy agreements."

Alex nodded and sat down in one of the chairs, scanning the dense text in front of him. He reached the bottom and used his finger to sign the appropriate field. Noriko took the tablet back and brought up another form. "This is for your benefits, insurance, and compensation. If you would be so kind…?"

"Compensation? I thought I was an intern."

"Sasaki Industries makes it a policy to fairly compensate all of its workers," Noriko said in a clipped tone. Alex figured she had read it off a script. "As an intern and a student, you will naturally not be paid as much as one of our fully vested engineers, but Mr. Sasaki arranged for your salary himself. If you have any questions regarding your compensation, you are free to reach out to HR at a later time." She handed the tablet back to him, and Alex's eyes went wide.

" _That's_ my hourly rate?"

"As I said, if you have any concerns, you may bring them up with—"

"No, no problems at all," Alex said, signing again. With that kind of money, he could start buying gourmet instant noodles. Or better yet, actual food.

When his paperwork was signed, Noriko motioned him to follow her again. They left the conference room and walked down a hallway to a room barely larger than a supply closet. An IT technician took Alex's fingerprints ("A security concern, you understand," Noriko said. "Company policy.") and a retinal scan ("An added measure for certain secured labs."). Alex complied, still in a daze, until Noriko led him back to the elevators and up to an even higher floor.

There was no curated marble expanse this time. The walls were a sterile white, and soft fluorescent light reflected off linoleum floors. Noriko and Alex had their eyes scanned at a small black panel on the wall, and were admitted into one of five workspaces on the floor. A single figure was seated at a table, his back to Alex. A Blaziken lounged on an office chair nearby. The seated man was bent over and tinkering with something before him, and Alex heard a crackle of electricity followed by the sudden reek of ozone. Noriko wrinkled her nose and cleared her throat.

"Jiro, Mr. Alvarez is here."

The man at the bench stood and turned with a grin. "Wonderful!" Jiro Sasaki extended a hand for Alex to shake. "It's so good to see you again!" When Alex returned the handshake, Jiro's smile grew wider.

Noriko inclined her head. "Well, I'll leave you to it. Mr. Alvarez, I wish you the best. And Jiro, try not to break anything." She turned and went back to the elevators, her fingers already dancing over her tablet.

When the door slid shut behind her, Jiro sighed. "She insisted on being the one to handle your paperwork. Usually we get someone from HR, but this time… Well, she's usually not that interested in the new hires." Jiro cleared some space on a bench and waved Alex over. "Come on, sit down. You've got to let me know how the new suit is working."

"It's amazing," Alex said. "It's so lightweight, and it glides like a dream! And it's so durable!"

"That's fantastic! We've never tried using nanofibers for something like your wingsuit before, and we didn't have the time to run a full battery of tests. I'd worried about that, but everything seems to be working?"

"I think the rooftops of Avenbrooke are a pretty good testing ground. I can't complain." Alex looked around the laboratory, taking in the machines and tools, and all the idling computers. "This is… a lot."

"Oh, it's not all mine," Jiro said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Well, I guess it is, since the company owns it, and I own the company. But I share this floor with a few other engineers. I had them work in other places today so we'd have the run of the place."

"I meant this whole internship thing. It's… a lot." It wasn't every day you woke up to an email from your dream company saying you had been selected for an internship you hadn't applied for, let alone an internship created especially for you, to work alongside your personal idol.

"Thank Johannes for that," Jiro said with a laugh. "He set all of this up."

"I know. I have." Alex had been going to the Hammer's repair shop for the past three weekends to help weld the Hammer's new suit. He hadn't dealt much with hydraulic engineering and machinery, but Johannes had been patient and willing to teach him while Hierro sparred with Albrecht and Siegfried in the yard.

Jiro stood and walked back over to his workspace. "I thought for the first day or two you could help me out with some new pulse weapons I'm developing for the Blaziken Man armor. I've almost got what I need, but I think I need an extra pair of hands. We can chat later about what you want to develop, or anything you want to learn while you're here. I've got the resources, so just say the word and I'll get you set up. That work for you?"

Alex could have wept for joy. He managed to nod, not trusting himself to speak.

Jiro twirled a thin screwdriver between his fingers. "Hey, did you bring your partner along?"

"Yeah, Hierro's right here." Alex palmed Hierro's pokeball from his belt, and the Hawlucha appeared in a burst of light. Hierro fluffed his feathers and glanced around the workshop, giving it an appreciative nod.

"Masakado, why don't you take Hierro down to the fitness center?" Jiro said. His Blaziken unfolded itself from the swivel chair and stretched his arms over his head. The fire type gestured for Hierro to follow him, and the smaller fighting type bounded after the Blaziken. "I figure we'll let them blow off some steam while we work." Jiro tapped the gauntlet on the table. "Give me a hand with this?"

Before Alex knew it, hours had passed, and his stomach was starting to cramp up from hunger. Jiro heard it rumbling and grinned. "Time for a lunch break, I think. I usually have food sent up, but I guess it's a good time to show you the commissary." They returned to the elevators, and Jiro took them down to the fifth floor. The commissary took up the entire level and buzzed with conversation. When Jiro stepped off the elevator, a ripple passed through the surrounding area, and several people rose up out of their seats.

"Mr. Sasaki, do you have a moment?"

"I wanted to discuss the plans for—"

"Regarding our requisitions for the Devon merger—"

"Sir, if I could just—"

"Mr. Sasaki, your designs for the Mark V armor are—"

Jiro held up a hand. "Later. If any of these things need my attention, Ms. Takeda will let me know. I'm tied up with another matter presently." He steered Alex towards the food counters with a wry smile. "This is why I usually have lunch sent up," Jiro said. "Anyway," he gestured to the trays of food lined up under heating lamps, "we stock the commissary with anything you could want. If you're vegetarian we have counters for that, but mostly the food is divided up by region. We hire from all over, so we try to serve something that everyone is comfortable with." He handed Alex a plate. "Load that up and then we'll find a table."

Alex picked up two sandwiches and filled the remaining space with a salad before following Jiro to a small table. Jiro set down a plate of sushi and glanced around the commissary. "Sorry about all this fuss."

Alex shook his head. "Oh, don't apologize!"

"They'll be watching you now," Jiro said. "We get interns all the time, but outside of a handful of people, no one in the company has the kind of access to me that you're getting. They're going to wonder why an intern gets to work so closely with me." He popped a piece of sushi into his mouth and shrugged. "I know you try to keep your night gig on the down-low, and I probably just made that a lot harder for you. The more people start asking questions, the harder it will be for you to keep up your secret identity."

Alex shrugged. "I'll figure something out. I'm a genius prodigy from AIT, after all."

"I think 'genius' is a bit of a strong word for someone who tried to punch Marcus Braun in the face," Jiro said with a laugh.

Alex was about to respond when he caught a strong whiff of nicotine. A man slid the third chair out from their table and sank down with a sigh. He pulled a tablet from his bag, put one earphone in, and resumed a video feed, some Unovan crime drama. "Hey Jiro," Noboru Takeda said around a mouthful of sandwich. "Nice of you to join the rest of us mere mortals today." He nodded to Alex. "Good to see you again, kid. I see you survived my sister's welcome wagon."

"It wasn't that bad, really."

Noboru smirked. "You don't have to be polite. She probably isn't listening." He glanced back down at his TV show. Without looking at Alex, he continued, "Your, ah, _friend_ busted up that sleepwalker den in Avenbrooke a little while back, right?"

"Yeah, that was me… I mean him."

"I couldn't believe it when I heard," Noboru rumbled. "That many sleepwalkers?" He put down his sandwich and shook his head. "Well, if nothing else, I hope they start taking this thing seriously."

"Who's 'they'? And what's 'this'?"

"Jiro, I like this one. He knows how to ask the right questions." Noboru's mouth twisted into a wry smile, but he didn't look up from his TV show. "'They' are anyone willing to give me a research grant. And 'this' is ending the epidemic that the Sins started. I'm working on a medication to block the effects of dream dust, a new kind of naloxone for a new kind of opiate."

Jiro's expression grew serious, and he lowered his voice. "How are the trials coming?"

"Tied up in ethical knots," Noboru replied. "Dream dust is _fucked up_ , Jiro. I can make medication that targets the neurotransmitters the dust targets and try to combat the physical effects, but there's a lot of psychic type voodoo mixed up in there. It's attacking the sleepwalker's consciousness along with their mind. From what I can tell, targeting the physical effects and leaving the mental rewiring untreated could have serious long-term repercussions. This ain't your average opioid. A pill a day and a twelve step program isn't going to cut it for these addicts." Noboru's hands had started shaking, and his eyes darted back and forth. "If I send this to trial before I've accounted for the variables, the side effects could be worse than the drug itself."

"Easy," Jiro said. "You know you have the company's full support. If that's not enough and we need more collaboration, I can put out some feelers and—"

"That's only half the equation," Noboru said. "The other variable is _time_. The longer I take with this, the more time people like Eva Mueller and the Baron have to spread this on the streets." He waved his hand. "I'm preaching to the choir, I know. You two just keep fighting your good fight, and I'll keep fighting mine." He finished his sandwich in two quick bites. "Well, I'll leave you to it. I just wanted to say thanks for taking those chemists down. Let our, uh, mutual friend know I appreciate it, if you see him. I need a smoke." He left, and Alex and Jiro turned back to their meals.

When Alex and Jiro returned to the lab, Jiro cleared his throat. "Noboru has a tendency to throw himself into his work, perhaps a little more than is healthy. Once he's started in on something, he's like a Granbull with a bone. Sorry if that was a lot on your first day."

Alex shook his head. "No, I've seen what dream dust does to people. I'm glad someone's working on it, especially someone who cares as much as he does."

"Noboru knows better than most what it's like to go down the dark path of addiction. He had help saving himself, and now he's doing everything he can to save others. He may not make the headlines like we do…"

"But that doesn't mean he isn't a hero too."

"Exactly," Jiro said. He sat down at his work bench and twirled a screwdriver in his fingers. "Now then. As much as I would appreciate having an extra pair of hands to help me make tweaks on the Blaziken Man armor for the next few months, I created this internship to give you the resources you need for your night gig. I made your suit as close as I could to your original specs, but I'm not the one flying over Avenbrooke every night, so you're the authority here. What can Sasaki Industries help you with to make your job easier?"

Alex nodded thoughtfully. "Well, I always have to keep weight distribution in mind. All of my equipment needs to be lightweight, or it's going to drag me down when I try to glide. The suit has been pretty good about stopping knives, and the padding can stop some blunt trauma, but a solid hit is still going to leave me with a bruise. I'd love to reinforce it, but unless you've made another breakthrough in nanofibers, I think it's as sturdy as it's going to get." He picked up a drill and tapped the bit. "Lately I've been wondering if I could add something to my fingertips, some kind of alloy that would allow me to dig into stonework. If I have to pull out of a glide and there aren't any handholds, being able to make my own could literally be a lifesaver. But really, the thing I most want to develop is a lightweight grappling hook.

"Hierro and I need to be airborne to do our best work, and once we're off the rooftops, we're vulnerable. In the battle two months ago, I was pinned on the ground, and it nearly got me killed three times. In Avenbrooke, most buildings have a handy fire escape, but even then I have to climb. If I could safely get up onto the rooftops from anywhere, I'd be way more mobile."

"Sounds like a great place to start. Let's draw up some designs this afternoon and see if we can figure something out."

After sketching some preliminary designs for his grappling hook, Alex looked up from the calculations on weight he was working through. "Jiro, why don't you fly?"

"Huh?"

"Your armor has thrusters on it, right? You do the whole leap a tall building in a single bound thing, and it looks like it generates significant lift. So why not develop and implement sustained flight? Is it a power issue?"

Jiro tapped his pen against his lips. "You're right, it's technically possible. The reactor that powers the armor can generate enough power for the thrusters to make flight theoretically feasible, but the real problem is stability. The amount of power required to get off the ground is one thing, but to keep me in the air it would require constant force. The gyroscopes in the suit can stabilize me if I'm just jumping up, but to maneuver in the air the way I'd need to if I was flying is too much. I've thought about different ways to work around it, but the amount of extra hardware it would require would make the armor too unwieldy."

"And the thruster jumps have been enough so far, yeah. What's your vertical with them?"

Jiro flashed an immodest smile, looking for all the world like a kid bragging about his new toy. "If I go all out, I can clear about seventy, maybe eighty feet." When Alex whistled appreciatively, Jiro held up a hand. "To be fair, the landings are usually pretty rough when I do go that high but… well, it is pretty impressive, I have to admit." He glanced down at some of his calculations. "What about your suit? I know how it should work theoretically, but I never had the chance to test it in anything other than lab conditions."

Alex thought for a moment. "Speed and lift vary, obviously. Depends a lot on the winds I happen to catch. As far as swooping and diving, I've only been using the Avenbrooke rooftops, and not many of those are more than six, seven stories. During the battle with the Sins, I jumped out of a helicopter with the old suit and it held up okay, so I figure this one can probably handle that kind of speed and altitude too. Actually, a lot of it comes down to arm strength."

"Do you think if we added more material you would have better results?" Jiro sat back and tugged at his beard. "I'm willing to defer to you here. You're the expert, as far as I'm concerned."

"Well, yes and no. There are people with bigger wingsuits who do like, base-jumping and whatever. And while they probably have smoother flights and better maneuverability on their drops, the suits are pretty cumbersome on the ground. What I have now is perfect for gliding from rooftop to rooftop, and I'm not about to go jump off Avenbrooke Tower. Or even another helicopter, if I can help it."

"Right. You've got to balance your aerial capability with your work on the ground."

"Exactly," Alex said. "I need to be able to use my hands and feet without getting tangled up in a ton of cloth. Hierro and I are really mobile when we fight, and if I'm getting tripped up, I'm probably a dead man."

"So minimalism is the way to go, then." Jiro twirled his pen between his fingers. "Duly noted."

The next time Alex looked up from the drafting table was when the lab door hissed open to let Masakado and Hierro in. The Hawlucha's feathers were rumpled, but he seemed otherwise in good spirits. Masakado dropped into an empty swivel chair and rested his head on his knuckles. Jiro laid a hand on his partner's shoulder. "How did the sparring go?" Masakado leveled his gaze at Hierro for a drawn-out moment. Finally, he lifted his hand and flashed a thumb-up. Hierro beamed.

Alex sat up with a groan and stretched before glancing at a clock on a nearby monitor. "It's five already?"

Jiro nodded. "Easy to lose track of time here. Let's call it a day. And," he added, "don't stay out too late. We've got more work to do tomorrow."

"Will do. See you later!" Alex and Hierro got on the elevator and swept down to the lobby, where they joined the press of workers leaving for the day. As they stepped out into the early evening sunlight, Alex blinked and looked down at his partner. "I can't believe that just happened. This is going to be the best summer internship ever." Hierro bobbed in a full body nod. Alex grinned. "I can't wait to show you my grappling hook designs. Jiro's giving me access to everything I could possibly need." As they walked to their subway stop, they passed a bakery. Hierro paused to look at the confections in the window, and Alex stopped short beside him. "Those look really good. Pick any one you want." Hierro looked up, and then down at the pocket where Alex kept his wallet. Alex grinned. "No need to worry about that anymore. It's about time we treated ourselves."


	17. Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

A quick sprint, a leap, the flashing of lights down below, an abrupt landing, and repeat. The sequence, at least, was familiar enough to Alex, even if the scenery wasn't. The cracked, aging stonework and shadowy alleys of Avenbrooke were a far cry from the terraced roofs and tree-flanked streets of Lenox Hills. But despite how much the rooftops changed, the rush of adrenaline as he jumped, the wind in his face and the swelling of his wings, that was always the same.

"You've got to keep up, Hawlucha Man!" Volcarona Mask shouted as she and Aethon flitted past. Her partner's broad wings churned the air, and Hierro swooped to catch the favorable current. "Can't let the bad guys get away!"

"Easy for her to say," Alex grumbled. "She doesn't have to run." Volcarona Mask clung to the back of her partner with a leather harness clipped to her waist. It allowed her to keep her hands free, and she was dexterous enough with the clasp to free herself in an instant to drop down on her foes from the sky, quarterstaff whirling. It offered her the kind of mobility Alex could only dream of, and he would admit to being more than a little jealous. But, he figured, when you had been in the hero business as long as Volcarona Mask (and had access to the entire Forbes fortune), you got to have all the cool stuff you wanted, and have a partner that was effectively a solar deity too.

Blaziken Man and the Dryad had arranged this particular team-up after hearing about an ongoing Sin weapon smuggling operation in Lenox Hills, overseen by Pride. The Dryad had obtained intelligence from one of her sources in the police department that Ambrose Fletch, a notorious Unovan gunrunner, was making a deal with the Sins to supply them with newer and more powerful weapons skimmed from the skirmishes overseas. Jiro and Lakshmi didn't want the Sins getting their hands on that kind of firepower, but they also couldn't play their hands too early, or the deal would just be rescheduled once more weapons were gathered. They needed to take out both the cache and the gunrunner in one fell swoop, and that meant a two pronged operation.

The Dryad and Blaziken Man had offered their assistance to the CCPD's Fifteenth Precinct and attacked the warehouse with the Dryad's Rose and Iron legions in the hope that the notoriously paranoid Fletch would do a runner. That was where Alex and Isabelle came in. They were both the perfect mix of endurance and ambush predators, hunting their quarry from above and waiting until they were exhausted and mistake-prone before dropping and finishing the job.

Alex and Hierro sprinted across the top of a trellised townhouse and soared out over the brightly lit main parkway of Lenox Hills. The Dryad had ensured that the street was lined with stately juvenile oak trees, and a stream ran down the center, looking far clearer than the remaining trickle of the Aven Canal that bisected Alex's home borough.

Fletch's car barreled down the thoroughfare, scattering pedestrians enjoying the warm summer night and ambling between the many fashionable cafes and cocktail bars that marked the commercial heart of Lenox Hills. Isabelle swooped down next to Alex again. "We've got to get him off the main roads!" Alex nodded and angled back towards the rooftops again. It was likely that Fletch had firearms in his car, and if they tried to corner him somewhere with civilians around, they ran the risk of collateral damage.

Aethon dove as Fletch's car approached a turn, and Volcarona Mask hurled down a flash grenade towards the car's driver-side window. There was a brilliant white flash and a loud bang, and the car's driver jerked the wheel the other way, down a narrow side street. Alex headed off the turn as Aethon shot out ahead, dropping down between the buildings and scattering fiery scales on the street. The Volcarona continued to force the car down ever more narrow and winding streets, making the driver go slower to take turns and allowing Alex to remain in pursuit.

When the car tried to turn back towards the theater district, Alex hurled one of the two flashbangs Isabelle had given him to goad the driver into turning into a parking structure. Alex and Hierro shot through one of the narrow openings in the concrete to land on the car's hood as it tried to turn around on the second floor.

The driver fumbled a sidearm from his waistband and shot through the windshield, but Alex had already rolled off the hood and drawn his batons. Fletch and two of his men clambered out of the car and summoned their pokemon. Hierro dodged around a Gurdurr's clumsy lunge before sweeping the fighting type's legs out from under it and sending it crashing to the ground. Alex was sure that after sparring with Siegfried, the Gurdurr would prove to be little trouble. When it tried to rise again, Hierro spun around with a double roundhouse kick, sending the Gurdurr flying into two leaping Bisharp. A Druddigon snapped at Alex, and he thrust one of his batons into the dragon type's mouth. When the beast clamped down on it, Alex activated the electric current and left the reptilian pokemon convulsing on the asphalt. Fletch's Sawk vaulted over the car and swung out with a right handed jab.

Alex managed to parry and match the Sawk blow for blow, but quick as a striking Seviper, the Sawk seized Alex's wrist and shifted its weight to throw him against a nearby concrete pillar. Before it could, Volcarona Mask dropped down through the narrow gap between the third floor and the ramp leading up to it, her arms tucked into her sides. She sprang over a parked car and flipped through the air, wrapping her legs around the Sawk's neck. She tightened the pressure, and the Sawk released Alex, scrabbling at its neck to disentangle her lock.

Fletch took a shotgun from the backseat and slotted two shells into it. Alex dashed forward to disarm him, only for the second henchman's Cryogonal to snatch his ankle in an icy chain. He could feel the cold seeping through his suit and settling into the skin of his leg. The ice type hovered behind him, the blue glow of its eyes shining malevolently. Fletch smirked and raised the shotgun, but before he could pull the trigger, Alex hurled his second flashbang at the arms dealer. The man snarled as he was temporarily blinded by the light, and the momentary distraction was all Hierro needed to bound over and kick the Cryogonal into Fletch, trapping him beneath the ice type's bulk and freeing Alex's leg.

By now the Bisharp had rallied, and Fletch's henchmen closed in. Volcarona Mask brought the Sawk down and sprang to Alex's side. She unslung her metal quarterstaff and twisted the middle of the shaft, splitting it into two long batons.

"Batons were kind of _my_ thing," Alex said.

"Jealous that mine are bigger?" she quipped back.

"If you were a guy, I'd think you were compensating."

Isabelle scoffed and turned to stand back to back with Alex. The first henchman swung in, only to catch a backhanded swing of Isabelle's left baton and a kick to the abdomen. She bounded over a car and battered back the Bisharp. She pivoted on her heel and brought her quarterstaff back together, powerful magnets in the shaft securing the two halves. She slid into a crouch and swung the staff around, knocking out the legs of the second henchman. "You Unovan bastards need to learn not to mess around in Volcarona Mask's town."

Fletch had shifted the Cryogonal off, and was scrabbling for his shotgun. Alex kicked it out of his reach and stepped on Fletch's wrist, making the man wince in pain. Fletch reached for the pistol in his waistband, only to receive a jolt from Alex's stun baton. "Can yours do that?" Alex asked Isabelle. When Volcarona Mask said nothing, Alex smirked. "Guess size isn't everything."

Officers from the Fifteenth soon arrived to take Fletch and his men into custody. Isabelle handled the debriefing with the police and rendezvoused with Alex when they drove off. "Looks like Jiro and Lakshmi are still wrapping things up with Pride's cache, but according to the cops it should all be over soon." She stretched and waved Aethon down from the parking structure's roof. "It's probably going to be a quiet night in Lenox Hills with all the police on the streets, but it's early yet. Might as well go on patrol. You in?"

Alex glanced down at Hierro and shrugged. "We don't really know the lay of the land here. It's easier back home when I know where I'm going."

"You can't stay in your borough forever, Hawlucha Man. I'll give you a tour, maybe we beat up some bad guys, and tomorrow night you can go back to cleaning up your home turf."

Alex nodded. "All right. Give me a lift back up to rooftops?"

They turned away from the brightly lit gentrified center of Lenox Hills and the Dryad's curated arboretums. The townhouses grew less stately, the greenery lining the roads less robust, and the foot traffic sparser. When Isabelle and Aethon slowed down, Alex stopped at the edge of a rooftop. "It's quiet here. In Avenbrooke, that means something bad is about to happen, but here that just seems normal. My instincts are getting mixed signals."

Isabelle unclipped from Aethon's back and dropped down to stand next to Alex. She gestured out over the rooftops. "Lakshmi's been keeping the peace here for years. Most criminals have moved out to the fringes of the borough where her reach isn't so wide. Outside the usual noise of the commercial districts, it's always pretty quiet around here. Anyone trying to cause trouble in Lenox Hills knows they have to be quiet about it or they'll draw Lakshmi's grass types down on them."

Alex tried to reckon the image of graceful and compassionate Lakshmi in her multi-hued sarongs with what Isabelle was telling him. "So the arboretums are how the Dryad keeps Lenox Hills safe, right? And the more arboretums there are, the more there's a deterrent to crime."

"Not to mention that with each new arboretum, more of the borough gets cleaned up and reclaimed."

"But what about the people that displaces? Just the average people who used to live there?"

"Lakshmi only creates arboretums on land that's been vacant."

"I mean what happens to the people who can't afford to live here once an arboretum is created? Where do they go?"

Isabelle shrugged. "Elsewhere. Would you rather the Dryad just let the Sins and whoever else have the run of the borough just because some people get priced out?"

"Well, no, but…"

"I try not to concern myself with 'buts'. The way I see it, it's a question of the greater good."

"People being forced from their homes is for the greater good?"

"That's a little hyperbolic, don't you think? But I've done the moral calculus, Hawlucha Man. As far as I'm concerned, it's worth it." Volcarona Mask's voice was hard as flint. "If that's the price the city pays to deter crime, then so be it. With every bastard we take down and put away, the world becomes a better place. If that means some people get displaced and need to move out of Ridgewood, then I'll live with that."

It didn't sound right to Alex, but he wasn't sure he had the right words to argue the point. Isabelle likely _had_ worked out the moral calculus and settled on a solution that salved her conscience, but she was Isabelle Forbes, inheritor of the largest corporation in the hemisphere and the sole beneficiary of her parents' fortune. The consequences of her actions very rarely reached her behind the walls and gates of Forbes Manor.

Before Alex could respond, the night air was split with the sounds of commotion, shattering glass and gunfire. Volcarona Mask twirled her quarterstaff and whistled to Aethon. "Looks like philosophy class is over, Hawlucha Man. That's our cue."

She and Aethon shot off over the rooftops, and Hierro sprinted after them. Alex was just a moment behind as they cut northwest across the rooftops of Ridgewood. The steady report of gunshots got louder as they angled towards a wide thoroughfare. In the glare of the streetlights, Alex saw that a fire hydrant had burst, and a car with a dented front had stopped not far down the street. A police cruiser was blocking off the street, and two officers were trading fire with a handful of Pride's men from behind the cover of the car.

Aethon soared out over the street and unleashed a column of blistering heat, almost instantly turning the water from the burst hydrant into a cloud of searing steam. With a beat of the Volcarona's wings, the steam traveled down the street, sending the gangsters scurrying for cover. Isabelle hurled three flashbangs from Aethon's back as she jumped out of the sky, landing with a somersault and unslinging her staff in one fluid motion. She was on her feet and battering away a lunging Arbok an instant later. The steam from the hydrant and the smoke from her flash grenades sharply cut visibility on the street. Neither side was willing to risk an errant shot as Volcarona Mask stalked across the concrete, unseen by any but those up above. Alex and Hierro soared out over the road, and Hierro dove after Isabelle.

There were flashes in the smoke as Pride's men summoned their pokemon. A Staraptor shot up above the fog and shrieked as it flew at Alex, only to be battered away by Aethon. As the Staraptor reeled, Alex swooped towards it and struck twice with his stun batons, making the avian pokemon crumple and fall to the street.

Spots of bright light lit up the fog below as Isabelle threw more flash grenades to further disorient her opponents. A deep roar rattled the windows up and down the streets, but Alex couldn't make out anything in the roiling mist save for a few blurry indistinct shapes. He could hear the sounds of grunts, metal hitting flesh, and the more bestial cries of pokemon. Somewhere in the midst of it all was Hierro, but the Hawlucha was keeping silent, and Alex was too far away to hear the skittering of his talons on the concrete. Even the thermal imaging on his suit was useless; the ambient heat of the steam blurred the images too much to give Alex any clear indication of who was who.

Abruptly, Aethon plummeted down towards the street, his wings beating the air and working it into a cyclone. Alex caught the updraft and rode the wind higher as two Golbat and a Honchkrow surged upward. The fog on the street lifted, revealing Isabelle and Hierro locked in combat with Pride's thugs. Aethon laid down cover by spreading fiery scales in the enemies' midst, and Isabelle dragged the ends of her staff through the embers, setting the weapon ablaze. Pride's men fell back as a Golem lumbered forward, but the rock type was soon engaged in a defensive action against a flurry of Hierro's kicks.

Alex swerved and pivoted to dodge the Golbat's gnashing fangs, and managed to strike one of the pair with a well-placed kick. Before it had righted itself, Alex had swung around to bring his batons to bear on its companion and shot down to the reeling poison type. He seized its leg in his left hand and whirled in the air, hurling it at the Honchkrow. The dark type squawked and turned to avoid the Golbat as Alex pulled his wings in close and shot at the ground. When the Honchkrow pursued, Alex angled his body and caught an updraft before spreading his wings wide again, soaring back up past the Honchkrow before looping again and shocking the bird with his batons.

On the ground, Isabelle swatted a Mightyena's muzzle and sent the canine back with a yelp. The police behind her laid down cover fire as Aethon continued to hold the enemy back with fiery dust. A Beartic snarled as it appeared from one of the gangster's pokeballs, and Isabelle separated her quarterstaff to catch its fists as it brought down its claws. The force of the blow nearly sent her to her knees, but she gritted her teeth and pushed back, using the Beartic's natural aversion to fire to press her advantage. Despite her best efforts, the raw strength of the ursine pokemon threatened to win out. Isabelle let a growl build low in her throat before it burst out in a full-throated roar.

"Don't you bastards know who you're dealing with? _I'm Volcarona Mask, bitch!_ "

She ducked out from under the Beatic's arms and bludgeoned it with her batons before slotting them back together and delivering an uppercut to the ice type's jaw. The Beartic staggered backwards, briefly stunned, but it recovered quickly and caught Isabelle with a punch, sending her sprawling to the ground with the wind knocked out of her lungs. The Beartic raised its claws above its head to deliver what would be a crushing and likely fatal blow.

"Hierro!" Alex barked from the sky.

The Hawlucha kicked away his human opponent and sprang into the air, angling towards a Magneton charging an electrical strike. Hierro struck the electric type off its magnetic axis and hurled it towards the Beartic, and the startled Magneton discharged its stored voltage, blasting the ice type with a current of powerful electricity. In the confusion, Hierro bounded over one of the Sins' cars and launched himself into the air for a drop kick on the stunned Beartic.

As Hierro attacked, Isabelle jumped to her feet and shouted a command at Aethon. The Volcarona unleashed a searing blast of hot air that drove all of the enemy pokemon back. Alex alighted on the ground behind their trainers and swept the legs out from beneath two of them and jabbed his left baton into the sternum of the third and turning the stun pulse up to its maximum setting.

The police advanced and handcuffed Pride's incapacitated thugs. "Thanks for the save, bird brain," Isabelle said.

"Ah, it was no problem."

"I'm not talking to you," Isabelle replied with a laugh. She reached down and ruffled Hierro's feathers. "Your partner did all the heavy lifting this time." Hierro cooed appreciatively, and Isabelle sighed. "You mind if we take five, Hawlucha Man? I could use a minute to catch my breath after that."

Alex had to admire her composure. For someone who had looked death in the eye just a moment ago, she was certainly taking things in stride. "We've covered a lot of ground tonight. A break can't hurt."

Isabelle smiled. "Cool. I saw a bodega like a block away. Let's grab something to drink."

"Oh, I, uh, don't actually have any money on me."

"Dude." Isabelle opened a pouch on her belt and revealed a roll of bills. "Chill. I'm _Isabelle Forbes,_ I can spot you a snack. What do you want?"

"Uh, water for me, lemonade for Hierro?"

"Sounds good." She waved to the police officers. "You boys got this? We have other Feebas to fry tonight."

Isabelle led Alex down the street and into a corner bodega. The bell above the door chimed brightly as they walked inside, and the clerk looked up from behind the register. "No way," he gasped. He leaned over the counter, looked out the storefront windows and gasped again when he saw Aethon placidly hovering in the air. "You're… you're _you_! I mean, you're Volcarona Mask and Hawlucha Man! From the news!"

Isabelle gave the clerk an airy wave and strode to the glass doors of the refrigerators at the back of the shop. Alex turned to the clerk, shrugged, and followed after her. Isabelle plucked three bottles of lemonade and one water from the racks and handed two of the lemonades to Alex. "First time meeting a fan?" she whispered.

"Pretty much." Whenever he was out in public as Hawlucha Man, things were usually going to hell. He knew that people were starting to take notice of him in Avenbrooke, but to say Hawlucha Man had fans was probably a stretch.

Isabelle plunked her bottles down on the counter and drew out a crisp bill from the roll in her pouch. The clerk punched their total into the register in a daze. "Do you, uh, want a receipt?"

"Nah, it's cool," Isabelle replied. She dumped her loose change into a small dish on the counter and handed Alex his water. As they were about to leave, the clerk cleared his throat.

"If it's not too much trouble…" He reached under his counter and pulled out a polaroid camera. "Can I get a picture?"

Isabelle flung an arm over Alex's shoulder before pulling him in close and fixing her features into a winning smile. Alex tried to give his least awkward grin. The camera flashed, and the picture printed out the front. The clerk waved it in the air to clear the image and laughed. "My boyfriend is _never_ going to believe this. Two superheroes in my shop?"

"Have a good night, dude!" Isabelle said, stepping through the door and making the bell jingle again. "He seemed nice." She scanned the rooftops up and down the street and nodded to a faded billboard atop a tenement house. "Let's sit there."

Alex and Hierro found a fire escape to scramble up, and a few minutes later, they were sitting on the iron catwalk in front of the billboard looking out over the roofs of Ridgewood. Alex and Hierro tapped the plastic necks of their bottles together in a toast and each took a sip. Isabelle held Aethon's lemonade up, and a long, thin proboscis shot from the Volcarona's mouth to drink down the sugary nectar.

Isabelle kicked her heels against the catwalk and took a drink of lemonade. "I just want you to know, I don't think you were wrong before."

"Huh?"

"About the whole greater good thing. I don't think you're wrong. We should be trying to make life better for everyone in the city, and to do it as equitably as possible. But I'm not wrong either, you know? To bake this particular cake, we're going to have to break a few eggs, and that's going to mean people are going to get priced out and have to move around. And that's an acceptable loss as far as I'm concerned. It's still making the city better, and that's the important thing." Isabelle took a sip of lemonade. "It's just that deterrence is half the game here, you know? If the bad guys know the price of being bad is getting a beat down from Volcarona Mask, or Blaziken Man, or Hawlucha Man, or whoever, and if they're properly afraid of us, they're going to do fewer bad things because the price is high enough that they don't want to pay. So if being good at my job means these guys pack up and leave town and make their neighborhoods a better place, then I'm cool with that."

"To be honest, I don't think much past stopping the bad guys."

"That's fair. I've had a few more years to think about this."

Alex nodded. "Five years now, right?"

"Give or take a few months." Isabelle shrugged. "Pretty much since the Sins showed up."

Everyone knew the story of the Sins' first salvo against Clarus City. After Marcus Braun had conquered the city's underworld, he turned his attention on the city's elite. The most prominent families of Clarus City had gathered for an annual charity gala at the Crown Royale hotel, and once almost all of the guests had arrived, several explosions ripped through the hotel, killing nearly all of the guests, including Harrison and Madeline Forbes and Marcel and Felicity Harcourt. The city reeled as it tried to reassemble a municipal government and process the loss of the most visible figures of the city's social scene.

In the resultant chaos, Jiro Sasaki created his Blaziken Man armor to fire a return salvo against the Sins that the police seemed unwilling to undertake. In the following months, the Hammer and the Dryad took to the streets, and not long after that, Volcarona Mask had her first appearance. The press had been captivated by the young heroine, perhaps even moreso than Blaziken Man's own explosive debut.

Knowing what he knew now about Isabelle Forbes and her night gig, it helped Alex put a few more pieces in place towards the enigma that was Volcarona Mask. Alex glanced over at Isabelle. "How old were you when you started?"

"I was fifteen when Johannes started training me, right after my parents died. I started going out there and kicking ass a few months later when I was sixteen." Isabelle puffed out her cheeks and sighed. "Let me tell you, dude. This is totally _not_ where I thought I'd be when I was a kid. I mean I'm, you know, twenty one years old, right? All the girls I went to boarding school with all went to like, college or whatever. If I'd been normal, I would be at a nightclub or something right now, or procrastinating on my, I don't know, statistics homework?"

"You can do both of those things at the same time, for the record."

"Yeah, I'll bet."

"So why not give it up? Why not go back to being Isabelle Forbes full-time?"

"At the beginning, I think I was trying to avenge my parents," Isabelle said with a shrug. "Total cliché, right? I think I grew out of that, though. I realized pretty quick that no matter how many bad guys I beat up and threw into Redstone, it wasn't going to bring my mom and dad back. Eddie, you know, the Phantom? That's why he's doing this. He just wants to get back at the people who took his mom and dad from him and left him here to clean up the mess."

"But not you?"

"Not anymore. After a little while, I started framing it in my head as making the city a better place, making sure nobody else has to deal with what I went through. Like, making sure that when the Sins go down, we've done enough good to make sure nobody comes up to take their place. And that kept me going for a while, but mostly I realized I was in it for the rush. I think I'm a little addicted to it now. But it feels _good_ , you know? Flying around, beating up the bad guys, all of that. I like what I do, and I don't know if you noticed, but I'm kind of _awesome_ at it."

"I noticed."

"So what about you, bird brain? What's your skin in this game?"

Alex shrugged and looked out at the twinkling lights of Lenox Hills and Ridgewood, and the soaring glass and crystal spires of midtown across the river. "I just… I just do it because it's the right thing to do. I mean, Hierro and I, we _can_ do these things, and not everyone can." Hierro perked up at the sound of his name and chirped low in his throat. "Right, buddy?" Alex ran his hand through his partner's feathers. "Avenbrooke needed someone to step up and protect it from the Baron and worse. No one else was going to, so I did."

"That simple, huh?"

"Well, yeah. I just that if I could do what I'm doing now, and I didn't, I'd never be able to live with myself. And I know it's dangerous, and I know that people like you and the Phantom and Johannes probably have better reasons for being out here risking everything, but I… this is what I do. This is who I _am_."

"Dude." Isabelle put a hand on his shoulder. "I get it." She sprang to her feet. "We're fighting the good fight, because that's what superheroes _do_!" She threw her head back and whooped. "Come on, bird brain, break time's over! I'm fired up now!"

Alex crushed his empty water bottle in his hands and jumped up next to her. "All right, back into the breach."

Volcarona Mask stuck out her fist. "Hell yeah."

"Hell yeah." Hawlucha Man bumped knuckles with her and hauled Hierro to his feet. Volcarona Mask whooped again and swung into the harness on Aethon's back. Together, the four of them flew off once more into the night.


	18. Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

Ingrid Sorenson reached up and scratched the feathered ruff around her Noivern's neck. Crescita leaned down and nosed Ingrid's platinum blonde hair and made a low vibration deep in her throat. Ingrid came from a long line of Noivern tamers, stretching back nearly one thousand years to a feared and powerful clan of north Kalosian raiders, if her nearly-senile great-grandfather was to be believed. Her family's more modern pedigree was well-established, and a few of her cousins had even been selected to study with the elite dragon trainers in far-away Blackthorn City. Had Ingrid set her mind to it, she probably could have done the same thing, but her heart had never been in the endless drills and mental conditioning that being a professional dragon master required, and she could tell Crescita hadn't wanted that either.

Her choice to pursue music, and to travel so far from home to attend the Harding Institute in Clarus City had caused no amount of consternation with her family, immediate and extended. But Ingrid had been adamant, and she had never looked back. It wasn't an easy life, to be sure, and it wasn't as glamorous as she had thought it would be as a teenager, but it was _her_ life, and she had chosen it for herself. But even when she had gotten a band together, she still wanted more.

And so she did the only logical thing and became a superhero.

Music had always helped her sidestep her debilitating stutter and anxiety, and when she was on stage rocking out, she could almost forget that outside the flashing lights and wailing guitar, she was quiet little Ingrid, the perpetual wallflower and shrinking violet. As Echo, she embraced that feeling, channeling it into every fiber of her being. Every fight with the bad guys was just another show, and she was going to be a showstopper.

But tonight, she wasn't just a solo act. It was time for Clarus City's most anticipated comeback tour, and she had been handpicked to join the band. The Hammer was back on the streets, and after all of their training the last few months, he had asked her to watch his back while he showed the Sins it took more than a beating to keep him down. A year ago, she would have bristled at playing _backup,_ at being second fiddle to anyone. But she had more than her share of close calls, and if sharing the glory was what it took to keep her and her pokemon safe, then that was fine by her. She and the Phantom had teamed up on multiple occasions, and while he could sometimes be a hothead and a major pain in the ass, they did good work together, and Ridgewood was already becoming a safer place because of it.

The Hammer had helped her identify her strengths and hone her skillset. She had talents none of the other heroes did, and it was his opinion that she offered some of the most unique applications of pokemon to hero work that he had seen. Plenty of the other heroes were just skilled fighters, and while they were good at what they did, sometimes a different approach was needed. Echo's application of sound was best at containing and controlling villains, and the Hammer had shown her how she and Crescita could use that while using Mezzo and Forte to provide the muscle to back up her power.

Her Loudred and Exploud loomed behind her, and Forte cracked his knuckles in anticipation of the fight to come. Ingrid bumped fists with both of the normal types before swinging up into the saddle on Crescita's back and clipping into the stirrups. She reached back to her red guitar and twisted two of the tuning pegs as she waited for the Hammer's signal.

She wasn't actually sure what the signal was, but the Hammer had told her she would know when the time was right.

A loud crash sounded from several streets over, and she heard the Hammer's booming laughter. "Guess that's the s-signal," Echo muttered. "All right. Mezzo! Forte! Sh-Showtime!" She swung up onto Crescita's back and unslung her guitar, holding the neck in her right hand while her left clutched the Noivern's reins. The dragon type shot into the air and spiraled out over the rooftops as Mezzo and Forte jumped into action.

Another series of crashes echoed up and down the street, accompanied by plumes of dust. The Hammer's laugh came again, and Echo tapped her heels against Crescita's flanks. The Noivern darted forward, rooftops and alleys blurring beneath her wings. Crescita looped to decrease her speed while Echo unclipped from the harness and dropped down on a roof ledge across from where the Hammer burst onto the main thoroughfare, locked in combat with a Machamp and Krookodile. His new metal armor gleamed in the streetlights, the hydraulic joints hissing as his steel and chrome arms delivered a flurry of blows. Forte crashed down on the rooftop next to her, his giant mouth contorted into a savage grin.

"Clarus City!" Echo screamed. "Are y-you ready to _ROCK_?"

The Hammer looked up and beamed. "Yes!" Forte threw his head back and roared, making windowpanes rattle.

" _I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"_

By now, Mezzo had caught up, and he and Crescita added their voices to the answering scream. Echo grinned. "All _right_!" She twirled her pick in her fingers and struck a chord. The sound tore through the speakers wired into her bodysuit as Mezzo and Forte opened their mouths to boost the resonance. The Hammer drove his right heel back, cracking the pavement as he pivoted and hurled the Krookodile into the air. The ground type hit the sonic shockwave just as Crescita unleashed a second auditory assault, and the crimson beast dropped back to the street with a moan.

"More where that came from!" the Hammer barked as a pack of Mightyena and their trainers raced down the narrow side street. A flock of Murkrow and Golbat took to the air, accompanied by a handful of ghost types.

"On it!" Two blurs shot out over Echo's head and arced towards the street. They dove straight for the thickest concentration of foes and came up swinging. Hawlucha Man and his partner fought back to back, clearing a wide radius around themselves with a flurry of lightning fast punches and kicks, punctuated by dynamic leaps and bounds, springing into each other's cupped hands or talons for a boost. Hawlucha Man somersaulted backwards before using the palms of his hands to quickly change direction and wrap his legs around the throat of one of the enemy trainers. He swung his weight around so that he was resting his center of gravity behind the man's head and forced him to his knees, but just before hitting the ground, Hawlucha Man jerked his weight to the side, hurling the man forward and into his Hawlucha's waiting fist. Then, almost before Echo could blink, Hawlucha Man was clear, ducking beneath a Mightyena's snapping jaws and supplexing the squirming canine.

Echo had seen Hawlucha Man fight before, in the battle royale against the Sins with all the other heroes. But that had all been chaos and confusion, and she hadn't been able to appreciate just how skilled the Avenbrooke hero was. He and his partner were in perfect synch, knowing each other's moves and acting in seamless two part harmony. Their strikes were fast and hard, but there was a fluid grace to it, a calm self-assurance that every hit was going exactly where it needed to, the kind of technical perfection that can only come from years of training.

She had worked with the Phantom often enough to know that he had a habit of showing off in combat and adding little flourishes to his technique. Hawlucha Man had the same kind of grandstanding swagger, but it wasn't affected like the Phantom's was. This was just the natural movement of an incredible fighter at the top of his game. He was _damn_ good.

But Echo wasn't about to let the boys have all the fun.

She quickly played a chord progression and signaled to her Exploud and Loudred to be ready to boost her sound. "Let's g-give 'em hell!" Echo gritted her teeth at her stammer before sucking in a deep breath through her nose and expelling it as a scream. She heard a whoosh as her pokemon boosted the resonant frequency and expelled it outward, and the force of her attack made her hair fly back from her face. "Don't let up!" she cried, repeating the same words the Hammer had used in training. "P-Pour your entire heart into it! _GO_!" The flying type pokemon were blown out of the sky, and on the ground enemy trainers strained against the sonic attack.

"We need to do something about those ghost types!" Hawlucha Man called, rolling under a Machamp's punch and kicking the hulking fighting type's legs out from underneath it.

"My turn!" the Hammer shouted back. "Siegfried, you're up!"

The Hammer's Conkeldurr burst from where it had been crouching on a nearby rooftop and slammed one of its concrete pylons against the street, shattering the pavement into jagged stones. Grasping the other pylon with one hand, Siegfried battered the stones into the cloud of ghost types. The spectral pokemon shrieked as the rock fragments tore into them and rained down on their allies below.

The Hammer's massive metal fist clenched. "Now, Albrecht! Finish them off!"

The Hariyama raced out from an alleyway up the street, its massive hands outstretched. When Albrecht was just below the ghost swarm, he pivoted on his back foot and pirouetted in place as he shoved his open palms up at the sky. The movement generated a powerful swirling gale that caught up the ghost types, sending them high and scattering them in all directions.

"More hostiles incoming!" Echo called down from her rooftop perch.

"Is it our target?" the Hammer asked.

"Looks like it!"

The Hammer turned to Hawlucha Man, and his suit hissed as he rotated one of his metal fists. "How about a boost?"

Hawlucha Man grinned. "Let's do this." He bounded up and perched on the Hammer's closed fingers as the metal suit hummed and clicked. The mechanisms in the forearm clicked and slid home, and the hydraulics hissed as they compressed. Then the fist shot upward, catapulting Hawlucha Man into the sky as the Hammer shot forward on piston-boosted legs towards the crowd of thugs that had burst onto the street.

"Iron Boyar!" the Hammer roared as he charged into their midst. "I've come back for a rematch!"

Sergei Polovich swore and signaled for his men to fan out. His new steel gauntlets gleamed in the streetlights, highlighting the wicked-looking spikes he had added. "Open fire!" Polovich cried. His men leveled their machine guns, and the sharp report of gunfire echoed down the street. The Hammer raised his fists to shelter his exposed torso, and the bullets bounced harmlessly off his metal arms. As he drew within striking range, his arms flashed out, knocking down the Boyar's men.

Polovich's Bastiodon charged forward, only to be stopped cold by the Hammer's fist. The rock type groaned as the Hammer barreled past, and Polovich's angry snarled turned into something closer to panic. "You've never once been able to beat me, Boyar!" the Hammer said. "And this time, your defeat is going to sting that much worse!"

"Barrier, now!" Polovich shouted. The iron cross on his Metagross glowed a brilliant blue, and a glowing wall of interconnected hexagons began to appear in the air before Polovich.

"Not so f-f-fast!" Echo called from down the street. Crescita dropped out of the upper air and unleashed a brilliant column of flame on the steel type. The Metagross groaned as its focus was broken, and the Hammer shattered the barrier with a single punch. At that moment, Hawlucha Man dropped out of the sky behind Polovich and jabbed his batons into the Iron Boyar's back. Polovich's eyes went wide as the electrical current from the batons coursed through him, but he didn't fall. As the Hammer's fist came crashing down, he raised his spiked gauntlets to catch the blow, his knees nearly buckling beneath the weight.

"This time, I brought my two star pupils with me!" the Hammer said, and Echo couldn't help feeling a swell of pride. Sure, she and Hawlucha Man were the Hammer's _only_ two pupils, but to have her work as a hero be recognized by the one man in Clarus City whose opinion she cared about made her feel like everything she went through to get here was worth it.

More of the Iron Boyar's men had rallied to him, forcing Hawlucha Man to retreat back to his partner. Polovich sneered up at the Hammer. "I'm not going down here," he growled. "I have the full might of Greed's forces to back me up tonight!" He ducked out from under the Hammer's arm and clanged his gauntlets together. "Come on!"

The night air was filled with the shrieks and roars of pokemon as more of Greed's thugs jumped out of hiding to surround the Hammer and Hawlucha Man. "So they w-want to get l-loud, huh?" Echo muttered. "All right, l-let's get _LOUD_!" She played a chord progression as a roar built in her throat, culminating in a piercing scream that froze her adversaries in their tracks.

"You cannot run, you cannot hide or fly away!

You better hide when you see me

But you can't run from the fury!"

Forte dug his fingers into the masonry as he boosted her sound to the limit, and Echo saw Polovich's men collapse as their eardrums burst. Windows shattered and rained down sprays of broken glass on the street below. Echo switched chords and tossed her hair out of her face. "Forte! M-Mezzo and I can handle this! Get down there and l-light them up! Bring the _fury_!"

Forte's gaping maw turned up in a grin, and he slammed his right fist into the palm of his left hand. The fur on his arms crackled as he built up a static charge, and soon his fist was surrounded in a snapping nimbus of harsh electric light. He vaulted off the rooftop and into the press below, his strikes punctuated with brilliant flashes and supersonic booms.

"Back him up, Siegfried!" the Hammer shouted as he traded blows with a Rhyperior and a Tyranitar. The Conkledurr's eyes narrowed as he built up his own charge, and then used his powerful legs to jump to Forte's side. Thunderous booms echoed as Forte and Siegfried lit up the battlefield. Hawlucha Man and his partner soared over their heads, battering humans and pokemon alike into the striking range of the hulking pokemon.

Polovich motioned for one of his thugs carrying a reinforced metal briefcase to retreat. "Don't let him get away!" the Hammer called.

"Hierro!" Hawlucha Man barked. His partner hurled a Scrafty into an advancing Throh and shot off into the air. Two men fired off shots at the Hawlucha, but Hawlucha Man was on them almost before their guns were raised, and they fell with two sharp jabs from the acrobatic hero's batons.

A Galvantula had managed to scurry up to Echo's rooftop, and Mezzo's attempts to blast it away with sonic pulses had been unsuccessful. Electricity crackled along its bristle-like fur as charged up an electric attack, and Echo winced as she prepared for the shock to come. With a shriek, Crescita dropped out of the sky, seized the spider in her claws and hurled it back down to the street just as it unleashed the discharge, shocking several of Polovich's allies.

Down the street, Hierro had managed to dispatch the fleeing man's Escavalier with a pair of powerful kicks, and then snatched the briefcase with his taloned feet. "Get clear!" Hawlucha Man ordered, and Hierro shot up into the sky.

Sirens could be heard closing in, and the Hammer looked up at Echo. "We got what we came for! Finish this off!"

Echo grinned. "All right! Mezzo! Forte!" She raised her guitar pick in the air. " _FORTISIMO_!" She brought the pick down as she raised her voice to a piercing high C. Mezzo and Forte boosted the sustained note as high as they could as Crescita harmonized her booming ultrasonic wave.

The shock of the blast knocked several of Polovich's men off their feet and sent them spiraling head over heels for several paces. The Hammer grabbed Hawlucha Man in one steel fist and held him close to the chest plate of his armor while the other hand dug into the street to keep himself steady. Siegfried and Albrecht had fought their way clear of the blast radius before the attack began, and now reappeared from the alley they had sheltered in to contain any of their opponents who had remained conscious.

Polovich had vanished in the confusion, but the package he had been carrying had been recovered. Police officers from Clarus City's Sixth Precinct and yellow PPS vans arrived to apprehend the Sins' men and take their pokemon into protective custody. The Hammer extricated himself from his armor to debrief with Captain Ito as Echo and Mezzo descended down to the street level.

Forte lumbered over, and Ingrid gave him a pat on his forearm. The Exploud let out a long sigh, and the hollow pipes around his face whistled. "You d-did good, b-big guy," Ingrid said. "T-Time to rest up." She reached up to dig the earplugs out of her ears as Hawlucha Man picked his way over to her, stepping carefully over the unconscious criminals.

"Echo! That finishing move was the coolest thing I've ever seen!" he shouted. "The way you just…"

Ingrid held a finger to her lips. "N-No need to yell."

"What? Sorry!" Hawlucha Man grinned sheepishly. He made an effort to lower his voice, but it still came out louder than usual. He turned to Forte. "And you! I recognize those moves! Siegfried's been showing you a few tricks, huh?" Forte returned Hawlucha Man's disarming smile and flexed his arms. Hawlucha Man glanced back at Ingrid. "The way you guide all of your pokemon at once is so awesome! I don't think I could do that. Sure, Hierro and I are good together, but it's probably a lot easier with just two of us. I can't imagine trying to coordinate three other partners."

"You j-just have to know how to harmonize," Ingrid said. "B-But don't sell yourself sh-short. I s-saw how you moved. Your p-partner is really something else." The words had come out before she really knew what she was saying. She never chatted like this with the Phantom, and despite the Hammer's kindness towards her, their relationship was clearly one of teacher and pupil. But Hawlucha Man was easy to talk to, and she found herself tripping over her words less around him. He might be a terror on the battlefield, but with his easy smile and open face, she could see why the people of Avenbrooke liked their resident hero so much.

"I figure we're all right," Hawlucha Man said with a laugh. "When you were playing before, are those pieces original or are they covers? Some of the stuff sounded a little familiar, but I don't know enough about music to know if that's just, like, common musical phrases or whatever."

"Some original c-composition, some c-covers. I just let the m-music move through me, I d-don't really think about it."

"Yeah, I thought I heard some TogepiMetal in there."

His namedrop of the Johtonian pop-meal girl group gave Ingrid pause. "You know T-TogepiMetal? I d-didn't think they had a big following over here." Ingrid looked Hawlucha Man up and down. "And y-you don't st-strike me as much of a m-metalhead."

"Yeah, I sort of, uh, that is, Hierro likes to listen to it when we spar. The kind of up-tempo stuff, you know? Helps him get in the zone, I guess."

"Right." Ingrid swung her guitar onto her back. "You sh-should come to one of my jam sessions. M-Maybe we can find some n-new sparring music for you." She looked over Hawlucha Man's shoulder. "The Hammer is c-coming."

Johannes had walked away from Captain Ito and nodded to the younger heroes. "The captain has been updated on the situation, and she thanks you both for your hard work. The police will handle things from here. They've established a cordon to catch anyone who managed to escape, but I doubt they'll manage to get Polovich. We're too close to the Underhill." The Underhill was the poorest district in Clarus City, and was notorious for its lack of cooperation with law enforcement. Police patrols steered clear of the Underhill, with its narrow streets, blind alleys, and sagging tenement buildings. It offered the perfect labyrinth for criminals with the right connections to disappear into, and it had only gotten worse when the Sins had taken over the city several years previously. "But that's not important," the Hammer continued. "Polovich may run to fight another day, but that just means I we'll beat him again. We took back what we set out to recover, and the police will ensure its safekeeping."

Through Johannes's underworld contacts, he had heard that Greed was mobilizing her men and seeking out contractors to hit a biomedical research facility to secure various chemical components to use in the manufacture of a more potent strain of dream dust. The Hammer had decided that thwarting a heist the Sins had clearly poured an extensive amount of resources into was the perfect opportunity to put his new armor to the test, and had called in Hawlucha Man and Echo for backup. It was fortunate he had, because Polovich's reinforcements were far greater than they had anticipated, and Ingrid privately felt sure that had the Hammer gone in on his own, the outcome would have been very different. Johannes was more than capable of handling a big ensemble singlehandedly, but Polovich had called in the whole orchestra.

But all the same, it begged the question of why the Sins were so intent on manufacturing dream dust that they would overreach like this…

"I'm very proud of both of you," Johannes went on. "You've far exceeded my expectations. I couldn't have done this without your help. Clarus City is lucky to have such powerful heroes to defend it."

Hawlucha Man beamed, and Ingrid lowered her eyes to hide her blush. "Th-Thank you, I... without y-your training I d-don't…"

Johannes put a hand on her shoulder. "There's no need to be so modest. When I was training you both, I never taught you anything you weren't on the cusp of figuring out for yourselves. All I did was give you a push in the right direction. Both of you have the makings of truly great heroes." The corners of his mouth turned up, and his face lit up with his signature broad grin. "I'm going to have to work even harder to stay ahead of you!"

Ingrid felt flushed with pride. Ever since she had first of the Hammer bursting onto the scene several years previously, she had known that he embodied everything she aspired to. He was brave and strong and confident, but he was also kind and beloved by everyone in Clarus City. When he had offered to teach her, to show her what it meant to be a hero just like him, she had jumped at the chance. And now, mere months later, he was saying she was going and above and beyond his expectations, that he saw her as a peer and an equal. That _he_ saw _her_ as a great hero.

She fought hard to keep her cool. Now was not the time to seem like a shameless fan girl.

"The armor worked all right?" Hawlucha Man was saying. "It seemed smooth to me."

Johannes nodded. "I wasn't sure if the torque mechanism would hold up to repeated use, but your instincts were right. It gave me just the kind of power boost we were looking for. And the pistons in the legs were running as smooth as I've ever seen them." Hawlucha Man glowed under the Hammer's praise, and Johannes turned to Ingrid. "And you! Your sonic attacks were nothing short of masterful! The coordination you display with your partners is proof of their trust in you as their trainer. Your hard work certainly paid off!" He swung back into his powered armor and clanged the heavy metal fists together. "Now then! The night is still young, and plenty more ruffians are waiting to creep out of the shadows. What do you say we give them a reason to hide again?"

"Absolutely!" Hawlucha Man said. He sprinted towards the Hammer as the armored hero maneuvered his fist into an upright position. As soon as Hawlucha Man vaulted onto the fist, it shot upward, propelling him into the sky. Hierro soared past, briefly eclipsing the streetlights as he shot after his partner.

Ingrid nodded to Mezzo and Forte before whistling to Crescita. "L-Looks like we've been c-called for an encore!" The Noivern had barely come to a stop before Echo was back in the saddle. Her Loudred and Exploud bounded forward as the dragon type shot into the sky and after Hawlucha Man. The Hammer's booming laugh rang out, carrying up and down the streets and amplified by Mezzo and Forte. Echo's mouth pulled back in a savage, predatory grin as she tapped her heels against Crescita's flanks. "Showtime!"


	19. Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

Alex huffed out a breath as the Granbull barreled into him, slobber trailing from the giant canine's pronounced lower jaw. Hierro shrieked somewhere off to Alex's left, and there was a flash as the Bronzong fired off a pulse of silver-gray light. Alex flipped over a trash can and seized the lid as he slid to a landing. The Granbull charged in for a second pass, and after spinning out of the way, Alex slammed the metal cover into the side of the brute's head. The Granbull gnashed its jaws and turned to snap Alex's hand off only to be drop-kicked by Hierro.

"Nice one," Alex gasped as he struggled to get his breath back.

It was collection night in Avenbrooke again, and one of the Baron's capos had gotten a bit rowdy while exacting his toll from the proprietor of Alex's favorite bodega. He and Hierro had managed to get the drop on the bastard, but the advantage of surprise had only lasted an instant. His Granbull and Bronzong had fought back hard. After a night filled with keeping the peace in Avenbrooke, Alex and Hierro were starting to flag and were hard-pressed to gain the upper hand.

A whistling of air snapped Alex back to attention as the capo swung a metal rebar. Alex acted on instinct, and his hand shot up to catch the club as it arced towards his temple. He locked his arm and gritted his teeth as he held the metal bar in place. His arm arched under the strain, but a second later, Alex had settled into the right stance and threw his weight behind his counter attack, snatching the rebar out of the mobster's hands and spinning on his heel, knocking the man's legs out from under him.

The air in the alley brightened as the man's Bronzong prepared another attack, but Hierro jumped into the air and grabbed one of the arms coming from the top of the steel type's head. He swung the bell-shaped pokemon around just as the Bronzong released its pulse of light, and the attack slammed into the chest of the enforcer's Granbull. The canine dropped with a groan as Hierro slammed the Bronzong into the ground. Alex used his batons to stun the capo and let out a long sigh. "I think I'm going to be feeling that one in the morning, buddy."

"Hawlucha Man."

Alex and Hierro whirled to the mouth of the alley where a man in an expensive suit stood with his arms folded. His muscular pectorals and biceps strained at the buttons and sleeves, and Alex dropped back into a fighting crouch. "Giordano. What do you want?"

The Baron's number two man waved his right hand in a dismissive gesture. "I'm not here to get in your way. If I was trying to stop you, I would have done it while your back was turned." He walked into the alley and delicately stepped over a puddle, careful not ruin his imported leather shoes. Giordano reached down and grabbed the unconscious capo by the back of his collar. "Mancini." He smirked before dropping the man unceremoniously back to the concrete. "This hothead could use a little time in Redstone to help him cool off."

"What do you want, Bruce?"

Giordano shrugged. "The boss asked me to bring you in for a face-to-face." He jerked his chin towards the mouth of the alley. "I've got a car waiting."

"How do I know this isn't a trap?"

"Kid, believe me, if the boss wanted you dead tonight, I'd have put a bullet in your back while you were busy with Mancini. The Baron just wants to talk, and he's insisting." He unbuttoned his suit jacket and spread his arms. "Look, I'm not even armed."

"All right," Alex said. "But Hierro rides with me, not in a pokeball. And I'm not wearing a blindfold."

Giordano shrugged. "Whatever, kid. Not like we're doing anything illegal." He glanced at Hierro's talons. "Just try not to ruin the seats."

Alex and Hierro slid into the backseat of the black town car idling in front of the alley while Giordano settled into the driver's seat, his scarred hands wrapped over the steering wheel. When they took off and Alex was able to reassure himself that Giordano wasn't going to turn around in his seat and shoot them both, he allowed himself to relax against the cool leather seat. Tucked into a shelf on the door were a few water bottles from an expensive brand, and after checking that they were factory-sealed, Alex popped the caps off two of them and passed one to Hierro.

They slid through the streets of Avenbrooke, and Alex could see the flashing blue and red lights of police sirens as the officers of the Eleventh prowled the streets to ensure the Baron's collection night proceeded without any unnecessary injury. Giordano's face was an impassive mask as he drove out from the city center towards the docks and the warehouses the Baron controlled.

When Giordano stopped the car in a brightly-lit parking lot and opened one of the back doors, Alex warily stepped out into the light, his hands on his batons. He engaged the heat sensor on his mask, but as far as he could tell, only the three of them stood in the lot, and no assailants waited masked by the glare. Alex let Giordano lead him to the door of a small warehouse and open the door. All the boxes and crates had been pushed to the side, leaving a large open rectangle of floor space with a table in the center. A white table cloth and a small candle gave it a veneer of civilization, and Carlo Pirozzi sat at one of the four table settings.

Giordano cleared his throat and glanced down at Alex's batons. Alex scoffed. "These stay with me. If this is just a little conversation like your boss says, then I'll keep them holstered. If it's not, then I'm not taking any chances." Giordano glanced at his employer, and the Baron gave a tiny nod. Giordano shrugged and motioned for Alex to take a place at the table.

Alex had just started to move when a commotion outside made him whip around. Another car had pulled up, and two of the Baron's enforcers were manhandling a third man out of the car. The bound man snarled and swore, his silver-gray hair floating around his face. It took Alex a moment to recognize the Ronin, but as soon as Avenbrooke's other vigilante had been released, he whirled on his captors. "Give me my fucking sword!" he roared. "I'll gut every single one of you fucking bastards!"

Giordano leaned down. "I did say the boss was insisting. Aren't you glad you came along willingly?"

Someone tossed the Ronin's broadsword at his feet, and the older man wrenched it out of its scabbard. His captors drew their guns, but Alex hurriedly stepped between them. "Easy," he said, putting his open hand just in front of the Ronin's chest. "Take a second to breathe. I think they really just want to talk."

"You're here too?" the Ronin hissed. "Dumbass, they're just going to execute the both of us."

"If they were going to execute us, why did they give you back your sword?"

"For fuck's sake, kid. I've just spent the last four months executing the Baron's goons. Why the else would they bring me out to the docks?"

From within the warehouse, Pirozzi heaved a theatric sigh. "All of this talk of executions is going to put me off my dinner. I assure you that if I wanted you dead, I would have done so already and spared myself the trouble of setting this up. Gentlemen, if you're quite done causing a scene, would you please come take a seat?"

Alex glanced at the Ronin and shrugged before turning towards the warehouse. The swordsman grumbled something under his breath and flicked a pokeball at the ground. His Samurott appeared in a burst of light, and after hesitating for another second, he followed after Hawlucha Man. Alex sat down and rested his elbow on the table, knowing full well it was bad manners, and also knowing that he knew would irritate Pirozzi. The Ronin dropped into the next chair, leaning his sword against the table. Hierro and Muramasa crouched behind their trainers. With a wave of the Baron's hand, all of his men except Giordano left the warehouse.

"Now then," the Baron said, pouring himself a glass of dark red wine. "In light of all the confusion lately, I thought it might be a good idea for us all to sit down and have a little chat." He gestured towards Alex and the Ronin's empty glasses. "Would you care for a drink?"

"I'll pass," Alex replied.

"Got any beer?" the Ronin asked.

Pirozzi sighed. "For Arceus's sake, it's not poisoned. But fine, suit yourself."

Alex pointed at the fourth chair. "We expecting company?"

The Ronin pulled out a flask and poured a generous helping of strong-smelling amber liquor into his glass. "Is there some new hero running around I don't know about?"

"Not a hero, no," Pirozzi said. "But he does like to make an entrance."

A shadow in the corner of the warehouse abruptly receded, revealing an utterly nondescript bespectacled man in a slim suit. "I suppose that's my cue, yes?" He walked over to the table, a Xatu fluttering along behind him. "James Stocks, gentlemen." He held out his hand, though no one shook it. His bland face shifted, turning up into a mocking grin. Behind his glasses, his eyes hardened to cold flint. Alex felt a shiver run down his spine, though he wasn't entirely sure why. "But maybe you know me by another name."

"Lust," the Ronin growled.

"Precisely," Stocks said, affable once again. "Carlo, I would love a spot of that wine."

The Baron stopped just short of pouring out a measure, and instead passed the bottle to Lust. Alex noted the calculated power play, and Pirozzi's refusal to let Stocks make a servant out of him at his own table. "So why the fuck are we all here?" the Ronin finally said.

Pirozzi opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Stocks held up a finger. "We are here, gentlemen, because unlikely as it may seem, we are all for the moment on the same side."

"Care to explain that?" Alex said.

The Baron made a gesture, and Giordano let a man in a white suit jacket into the warehouse. The man pushed a cart with a large covered serving dish. The four men at the table were silent as the waiter uncovered the platter, revealing a large roast served with a variety of greens and potatoes. The waiter carved up the roast, plated it, and served it to the four men around the table before pushing his cart back out the door. As soon as the waiter left, the Ronin lifted his plate and dumped the contents on the floor, where his Samurott pounced on it. Alex glanced back at Hierro, and the Hawlucha shook his head. Cooked meat didn't often agree with Hierro's stomach, so Alex gently pushed his plate away.

Pirozzi sighed as he cut up his slice, taking small elegant bites, while Stocks set upon his food with a relish. Alex allowed them to eat for a moment before clearing his throat. "Mr. Stocks, you haven't answered my question."

Stocks sat back, wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin and took a sip of wine. "Right, back to business then." He folded his hands on the table. "As you all know, the Sins recently had a transfer of power. The new leader at the top of the organization is a powerful esper known as Marinette, though she prefers to be called Dominion. Dominion has the power to infiltrate and influence our thoughts, making the other Sins puppets to her will. For now, Avenbrooke has been spared, but we can't be sure how long that will last."

The Baron nodded. "I would like to believe that the prowess of my men and the strength of my organization is what is keeping Dominion at bay, but I'm not arrogant enough to seriously consider it. It is much more likely that she simply sees no value in taking Avenbrooke yet."

"You two," Stocks said, gesturing towards Alex and the Ronin, "have defended Avenbrooke for some time against both the Baron and any incursions the Sins have made. Mr. Pirozzi naturally wishes to preserve his own interests here, and Dominion poses a threat to that should she ever turn her attention on this borough."

"You mind if I smoke?" the Ronin said.

Pirozzi narrowed his eyes. "Yes, actually I—"

"Well," the Ronin replied, already lighting a cigarette, "go fuck yourself." He exhaled a plume of smoke not quite in the Baron's face. "Anyway. How do we know you aren't here on your boss's orders? Her whole deal is mind control, right?"

Stocks raised an eyebrow. "It is a valid question, and while I have given assurances to Mr. Pirozzi that I am acting of my own free will, neither you or Hawlucha Man would know that. You must understand that for all of Dominion's great psychic power, there are measures that can be taken to shield your mind from an esper's influence. My power comes from information, and I could lose my leverage if an esper could glean whatever they wanted from my mind, or bend me to their will. I had undergone a strict regimen of mental training years before Dominion arrived in Clarus City, and I can reliably shield my mind from her. To the best of my knowledge, none of the other Sins have the training I do. I allowed Dominion to think she had won me to her cause so that I could work against her from the inside."

"Why the hell would you do that?" Alex asked.

"She killed Marcus Braun."

"So this is just revenge for your old boss?" The Ronin took another pull on his cigarette. "I don't get it. Sounds like Dominion is a stronger player on the board. Why not back her play?"

"Marcus was my partner."

"Loyalty among crooks, huh?" The Ronin slouched back in his chair. "I always thought you all were his subordinates."

Stocks raised his right hand and flexed his ring finger. A simple gold band sparkled in the light of the electric candle at the center of the table. "He was my _partner_." Stocks' eyes hardened again, and his mouth contorted into a snarl. "She _slaughtered_ my husband. One way or another, I'm going to bring that bitch down." He took a deep breath and had a sip of wine, bringing himself back under control. "Very few people know about my connection to Marcus. The other Sins were kept in the dark. If anyone knew, they could have threatened me to get to Marcus, and we would not let that happen. But at this point, there is no need to keep the secret anymore." He let out a mirthless laugh. "Ironic that the heroes of Avenbrooke are some of the first to know the secret that would have destroyed me just a few months ago. Strange bedfellows, indeed."

"So where do we stand?" Alex said. "You've got your vendetta, the Ronin and I have our duty, and the Baron has his interests, and since all of those are in line, we're just going to be allies now?"

"I thought it might be prudent to ensure we were all on the same page," the Baron replied, refilling his wineglass. "When Dominion makes a play for Avenbrooke, my men will work to beat her forces back, as I'm sure you and the Ronin will."

"And how does Lust play in?"

Stocks smiled. "I'll feed you or the Baron information about Dominion's plans when I receive it, and you can pass that along to your own allies to sabotage her efforts. You may have already gathered this, but Dominion is certifiably insane, and her plans are as erratic as her behavior. She is incredibly paranoid, and disseminates information on a strictly need-to-know basis, relying on her psychic powers to quash any questioning of orders or dissent in the ranks. But from what I can gather, her efforts have been focused on pushing dream dust."

"Any junkie on any corner of the city could tell you that," the Ronin grumbled.

"But that's only phase one. Apparently, one of the side effects of dream dust is that it gradually weakens the user's mental defenses, leaving them open to psychic suggestion. It seems likely that Dominion's ultimate goal is to create an army of somnambulists. She also has been looking into radio transmission waves, perhaps to boost her own psychic range. She has expressed an interest in brokering a deal with the Kuromori, and I fear it will not be long until they fall under her control and are brought into the fold."

"I have realized that allowing dream dust to gain a foothold in Avenbrooke was a mistake," the Baron added. Alex noted that he was careful not cop to his own efforts in pushing the drug. "I have instructed my men to forcibly shut down any chemists producing the substance."

"What about the people already addicted?" Alex said. Behind him, he heard Hierro shifting, and could sense that his partner had puffed out his feathers. "Or the people _you_ were using dream dust to control? What about Pierre?"

The Baron raised an eyebrow. "Mr. Espalier's situation is unique and has been seen to personally by me."

"So you're still using it to control him?" Alex didn't bother masking the scorn in his voice. "You filthy hypocrite. You're no better than her."

The Baron's icy calm finally broke, and his knuckles turned white around his steak knife. "I bring you here and serve you food from my own table," he said slowly. "You scoff at my hospitality and disrespect me at every turn. All of this, I was willing to overlook in consideration of our common goal. But now you insult me to my face, and I won't stand for it any longer. It's time Augustus and I taught you a lesson in respect!" He flicked a pokeball out, and his Empoleon appeared in a flash of light. Alex and the Ronin jumped up from the table, sword and batons in hand. Hierro and Muramasa exchanged a glance, and the Samurott whirled on Giordano and his Blastoise while Hierro prepared to spring at the Empoleon.

Alex prepared to jump forward and strike the Baron's arm with his batons before he could draw that pistol Alex saw hanging from a harness in his jacket. Before he could move, Stocks flicked his fingers, his gold wedding band flashing. "That's quite enough." His Xatu's eyes flashed, and Alex found he was locked in place. The Ronin ground his teeth as he struggled to move his sword, and the Baron hissed out a string of curses. Hierro had already leapt into the air, and crashed to the ground. Stocks glowered at each of them in turn. "I had hoped you three would be able to talk like civilized people when the fate of our city was on the line. I thought we were all in accord that Dominion needed to be stopped."

"I'm not working with him," the Ronin snapped.

"Damn right," Alex said. "We may have a common enemy, but that sure as hell doesn't make us friends." He was still locked in place, but could move his eyes toward Stocks. "If you want Dominion brought down, then you'll give us your information when you have it."

"My boy, your negotiation skills need work."

"I don't negotiate with crooks."

"I see." Stocks folded his arms. "Even if you don't agree, the enemy of my enemy is _my_ ally. When I learn more, I will be in touch. But for now, I believe we are finished here. Moira, if you would?"

The Xatu's eyes flashed again, and Alex had the sensation of being stretched out and yanked off his feet. An instant later, he dropped into a patch of brambles beneath a highway overpass. Alex would have jumped to his feet, but Hierro appeared in the air just above him with a sharp crack, and knocked Alex flat again.

"That motherfucker," the Ronin snarled as he struggled to extricate himself from a thorny bush.

Alex helped the swordsman to his feet as Muramasa snapped his fangs and tossed his crested head. The Ronin worked to soothe his partner while Alex picked burrs out of Hierro's feathers and checked his suit for any damage to the nanofibers. "I guess that wasn't a total loss," he said. "Now we've got someone on the inside of the Sins' organization."

"And he confirmed that Dominion is mad as a hatter," the Ronin said. "So I'm going to take anything he says with a grain of salt. Stocks may be a smart, but when his boss's left hand doesn't know what her right hand is doing, I doubt anyone else will." He fixed his ponytail and strode past Alex.

"Where are you going?"

"It's still collection night, kid. I'm going to go show the Baron what I think about his lesson in respect." The Ronin's eyes hardened, and Alex had a good idea of what he had in mind. "Don't get in my way. I'm not in the mood to hear you get high and mighty tonight." With that, he turned and stalked off.

Hierro cooed and gave Alex an inquisitive look. "I don't know what the next move is," Alex said. "This is bigger than me, bigger than Avenbrooke. I think we need to talk to Jiro."


	20. Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

The winch hummed as it respooled the thin nanofibers, and Alex's breath caught as the mechanism turned. Then, with a hiss, the thread spiraled off the guiding coil and knotted itself in a thick snarl. "Damn it," Alex growled. Torstein, the engineer that shared Alex's work bench, glanced up from his own project and made a sympathetic noise.

Alex noted down his observations on the latest failed test and did his best to untangle the mess of cable. His attempts to create a grappling hook had not been going well, and for every modification and improvement he made for his design, it introduced three new problems. The mechanism had to be as small and light as possible to not disrupt his weight distribution during flight, but he had been running up against hard physical barriers when making the mechanism that respooled the cord. Too small, and the cable got tangled, but too large and he wouldn't be able to carry it with him. Jiro had told the other engineers that Alex was designing the hook for mountain rescue teams and first responders to collapsed buildings, but everyone else in the lab was too intent on their own projects to pay Alex much mind.

"Torstein, why don't you take five?"

Torstein looked up from his work, shrugged, picked up his mug and walked over to the lab's coffee machine. Jiro Sasaki sat down across from Alex and glanced down at the grappling hook prototype. "No luck?"

"Nope." Alex couldn't hide the bitterness in his voice. "Seems like everything I'm trying just makes it more complicated." He gestured at the tangled mess of cable. "That's how my brain feels right now."

"Alex, how are you feeling?"

"I… frustrated, I guess?"

"How much are you sleeping?"

"I don't know. Not much last night, but I was chasing down this guy who—"

Jiro reached across the table and put a hand on Alex's shoulder. "You're not taking care of yourself. Protecting the city is important, but you can't do that if you keep burning the candle at both ends like this."

Alex looked down. "Sorry."

"You don't have to apologize to me." Jiro smiled. "Take a break tonight. Tomorrow is Saturday, so sleep in too. I'll give Isabelle a call, and she can patrol Avenbrooke tonight. Okay?"

"But—"

"I know crime doesn't sleep. If there's an emergency, then by all means suit up. But you've got to rest a bit. Order some takeout, have a beer, watch a movie, and take it easy, all right? I'm sure Hierro will appreciate a little rest too."

Alex nodded. "All right. For Hierro's sake."

Several hours later, Alex sprawled out on the sagging couch in his apartment, a steaming mug of tea perched on the coffee table next to his laptop. He was scrolling through a list of movies to stream, but couldn't settle on any to watch. The Unovan action flicks and Johtonian kung-fu movies he used to be into had lost their appeal when he started living them on a nightly basis, and he had never been able to sit through a plot-heavy indie film under normal circumstances, let alone when he was antsy about taking the night off.

He was starting to wonder if he should have taken Jiro's advice and had an actual drink, but ever since becoming Hawlucha Man, he hadn't had much interest in alcohol. Still, the corner bodega would be open for another hour or so, and while he debated whether or not to put on his shoes and walk over, he heard a rapping at his window. Hierro sprang off the back of the sofa, his feathers rising, while Alex grabbed his batons off the counter. The rapping came again, more insistent, and Alex unlocked and slowly eased up the window.

As soon as it had raised an inch, a shadowy figure dropped down off the fire escape and shoved it up enough to tumble through the gap. "Thank Arceus you're here," the figure said, dusting herself off. "Because I am fucking _boned_ , birdbrain."

"Shadow? What the hell are you doing?" Alex gestured for Hierro to get in position. "How do you know where I live?"

The freelance thief beckoned her Purrloin and Haunter in through the window before slamming it shut and ducking into his kitchenette, out of sight from outside the apartment. "I tailed you once, obviously. I was really hoping to catch you before you went all heroic tonight, because I need a favor."

" _You_ need a _favor_."

"Is there an echo in here? Yes, I need your help."

Alex figured she wasn't going to jump him, but he still stepped back as far as his small apartment would allow. "What's the favor?"

"So Envy's been after this Sinnohese diamond for a while, and he contracted me to get it for him. But see, the thing is, I kind of don't want him to have it. It's rumored to have some properties that I'd rather not have fall into his new boss's hands. I contacted the Baron to see if he wanted to take it off my hands, but he's not interested either. So now Envy knows I've got the diamond, and I've spent the past three days going from safe house to safe house, but Envy's goons have been closing in. I have one last bolthole in Greenpoint where I can stash the rock, but I don't think I'll be able to get that far on my own. The Sins are on the lookout for me, and there's a lot of ground to cover between my last safe house and there. You were on the way, so I figured it was worth a shot seeing if you wanted to tag along?"

"You want me to protect you from the Sins?"

"To make sure Dominion doesn't get her hands on this diamond." She opened a pouch on her belt and showed Alex a glimpse of a fist sized, multi-faceted gem that was probably worth more than Alex would make in a lifetime. "It could be the rumors are true and this can amplify an esper's powers, or the Sins could sell it to buy a metric fuckton of weapons. Either way, it doesn't look good for Clarus City. That's the kind of thing you goody-goody types care about, right?"

"I… well…"

"Listen, I know we're technically not on the same side here. But I'm trying to do the right thing by this city tonight, and if I don't get this diamond to St. Wulfric's church in Greenpoint, it's going to be bad for a lot of people. I'm at the end of my rope here, and I've got no one else to turn to. Are you going to help me, Hawlucha Man?"

"This is just a lot to take in."

The Shadow groaned. "I need an answer _now_. Envy's people are closing in as we speak."

"You led them to my house?"

"I didn't have a fucking choice!"

"Fine. Let me suit up. We'll be out of here in five."

Three and a half minutes later, Alex and Hierro were racing up their building's fire escape behind the Shadow and her pokemon. "St. Wulfric's is in the northeast part of Greenpoint," the Shadow said. "Just follow me, but if Envy's guys get the jump on us, I'll let you take the lead."

"Got it."

"And birdbrain? I know I brought you along to watch my ass, but you could be a little more subtle about it."

Alex felt himself go red under his mask. "I'm not… I don't mean to… you're just…" The Shadow laughed and jumped up onto the roof. Alex and Hierro were a step behind her, and together they approached the edge. "So how are we doing this?" Alex asked. "Hierro and I can fly from building to building, but you might not be able to keep up."

"No need to worry about me, Hawlucha Man." The Shadow unclipped a metal rod from her back and twisted it from side to side. The rod expanded into a long quarterstaff, and the Shadow backed up several paces to get a running start. "I'm as used to operating on the rooftops as you are." Her Purrloin jumped up onto her shoulder, and the Shadow raced past Alex, using her staff to propel herself further.

Alex and Hierro were just behind her, and Alex glanced over at his partner. "So much for a night off, huh?" Hierro chirped and angled for a better landing. When his talons touched down on the next rooftop, he glanced at Alex and shrugged. "Yeah, we probably never would have decided on a movie anyway."

They ran into the first of Envy's men only a few blocks later. "Shadow!" a rail-thin woman shouted as she sprang across an alley. "The boss is going to have your head!" A knife glinted in her hand, and Alex raced forward to intercept. He activated the electric charge on his batons as the rod caught the blade of the knife, sending the charge down through the metal and making the woman drop the weapon. "You?" she managed to gasp as Alex drove his second baton up under her ribs. "But she…"

"Roped me in, yeah," Alex grunted as the woman dropped.

"Ten o'clock!" the Shadow called, and Alex whirled as an Ariados sprang on him. Hierro intercepted the arachnid, hurling it off the roof before pivoting and springing towards two Bisharp that a second assailant had summoned. The Shadow spun her staff around and settled into a fighting stance. Alex noted that she looked far more confident in her hand-to-hand combat than in their first encounter, but a few months of hard training was no match for the years of experience he and Hierro had. "Alecto! Apate! Go!" Her Haunter shot into the air and unleashed a pulse of spectral indigo light, dropping a flock of Golbat Alex hadn't even seen coming. The thief's Purrloin darted through the legs of the trainer commanding the Bisharp and gouged at the man's eyes with wickedly sharp claws. "Back, Apate!" the Shadow called as she rushed in, swinging her staff in an arc. She swept the man's legs out from under him. As the man dropped, she brought the staff around and shoved the tip into his chest, driving the air from his lungs. Then, she drew a knife from a sheath strapped to her leg and prepared to drive the blade into the fallen man's throat.

"Stop!" Alex shouted. "So long as I'm here, no killing!"

"Are you fucking serious, birdbrain?"

"If you do, you're on your own!"

The Shadow scowled, but settled for knocking the man out with her staff and sheathing her knife. "I should have left you at home." A Sableye burst from the darkness, and Alex whirled to knock it flat with his batons. The dark type shrieked as electricity coursed through its body, and Alex turned back to the Shadow and raised an eyebrow. "Good save," the thief groaned. "We should keep moving, these two aren't acting alone!"

Her Purrloin jumped back onto her shoulder, and they were off again. Envy's coterie of thieves and enforcers were never far behind. A trainer with a swarm of Beedril ambushed them at Sixth and Laurel, and once they had beaten them off, they were set upon by a skilled knife fighter with a pair of Drapion. Alex and the Shadow had been forced to cut and run from that, only to be waylaid by an enforcer with three Galvantula and Mandibuzz just two blocks later, just at the Avenbrooke and Greenpoint line. Hierro had managed to deal with the electric types while Apate and Alecto subdued the trainer. Alex and the Shadow had kept a Mandibuzz at bay.

When the vulture had finally dropped to the roof in a heap of feathers, the Shadow turned to Alex. "Once we're out of Avenbrooke, this is going to get even harder. Envy has probably called in as many of his cutters as he can to wait just outside the Baron's territory to hunt us down."

Alex shrugged and holstered his batons. "That's fine with me. Hierro and I are warmed up now. Think we could lure out Envy himself? I've always kind of wanted to take a crack at him."

The Shadow laughed. "Well, aren't you feeling ballsy." She winked. "Are you just talking tough to impress me?"

"Why would I want to impress you?"

"Because guys like impressing beautiful women."

"You see any beautiful women around here?"

"Ouch. That's cold, birdbrain."

Hierro rolled his eyes and made an insistent shriek. Alex nodded. "Right, we've got to get a move on. Where do we go from here?"

The Shadow sighed and pointed towards a glowing cluster of buildings. "Just keep heading that way. The Greenpoint Galleria is pretty hectic around this time of night, so I figure we might lose a tail in the confusion."

"Or at least hold them up long enough to buy us some breathing room."

"Exactly."

They took off again, but it wasn't long before the Sins' men caught up to them. They were darting over the long, flat roof of a self-storage building when someone seized the Shadow from behind. "Where are you going in such a rush?" the man hissed as he placed a gun against the thief's temple. Alex drew his batons, but the man clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Let's not be hasty. If you so much as twitch, I'll blow the little lady's brains out. Now then," he said glancing down at the struggling Shadow, "I think you have something the boss wants. If you hand it over, I'll let you and your friend here walk away."

"Go to hell," the Shadow growled.

The man smirked. "I'll see you when I get there." Just as he was about to pull the trigger, the Shadow reached back and squeezed the man's groin hard enough to make him yelp in pain and surprise. His arms flailed back, and the shot echoed off into the night. Alex was on the man in an instant, clubbing him across the face and knocking the gun from his grasp. The man spat blood and ground his teeth together. "So you want to do this the hard way? Fine! Get 'em!"

Two more figures jumped up onto the rooftops from an access stairway and were briefly illuminated by the flashes of pokeballs. A Weezing, Ariados and Turtonator appeared, and Alex fell in beside Hierro as he braced for a fight. A man with tattooed arms covered in Alolan spiral designs whistled through his teeth, and the Turtonator's shell began to glow red. Fire erupted from its snout, and the Shadow darted out of the way.

The Ariados pounced, giving the fallen man time to retreat to his comrades. Hierro and Alecto worked together to knock the arachnid off the rooftop, and the Haunter fired off a barrage of spectral orbs at the enemy trainers. In response, the Weezing exhaled a cloud of noxious gas that the fire type quickly ignited, making the rooftop erupt in a nimbus of flame. Alex and the Shadow hit the roof as the fire roared over their heads, extinguishing just as quickly.

"You see that big guy, the Alolan?" the Shadow hissed.

"Hard to miss."

"He's not one of Envy's." The thief cringed. "He's one of Wrath's guys, a lieutenant. Looks like Envy called in some reinforcements."

Alex scowled. That certainly complicated things. Envy maintained a network of thieves not unlike the Kuromori across the river, a crew of subtle operators who prided themselves on their ability to infiltrate targets, take what they needed, and get out undetected. The Shadow's plan had been solid, to deprive their pursuers of their cover and discretion by losing themselves in a brightly lit, densely populated area like the Galleria. But if Wrath's anarchists were in the equation now, that plan wasn't going to work. While Envy was a subtle operator, Wrath probably couldn't even spell subtle. If the Sins wanted the diamond badly enough to deploy Wrath's mad bombers, they wouldn't hesitate to cause carnage at the Galleria to get it. The kind of collateral damage that would cause was unthinkable.

"We need a new plan." Alex said.

The Shadow nodded. "No shit. I know another way into St. Wulf's, kind of a backdoor. But it means we're going to have to loop out and around."

"We'll have to risk it."

"All right. But first we need to get rid of these guys."

"Leave that to me." Alex caught Hierro's eye and raced forward. His partner picked up on the signal and matched his pace. "Focus on the Weezing and keep the bad guys off me as best you can," Alex said. "When I give the signal, send it my way."

Hierro chirped the affirmative and jumped at the hovering poison type, battering its two heads with a flurry of slashes and kicks. The Weezing moaned and attempted to shoot the Hawlucha out of the sky with a noxious projectile, but Hierro proved too quick. He looped in the air, and the sludge struck one of Envy's men, knocking the man flat and reducing him to a coughing fit.

Alex sprinted towards the Turtonator and ducked under a stream of fire. "Come on, big guy," he muttered. "Show me what you're made of." The hulking fire type moved far too slowly to keep up with Alex, and he kept an eye on its shell. When the carapace was glowing white-hot, Alex whistled. "Now, Hierro!" The Hawlucha jumped up and delivered a two-foot kick to the Weezing's larger head, knocking the poison type off its axis. Then Hierro seized it by its smaller head and hurled it through the air at Alex and the Turtonator. The Turtonator bellowed as Alex jabbed his stun baton into his chest and sprinted for the edge of the rooftop. The Sins' men seemed to realize what was going on and ducked for cover. Alex heard the Shadow's footfalls and Hierro's claws skittering across the gravel behind him.

They had just cleared the gap when a resounding boom nearly knocked Alex off balance, and a fireball appeared just above the rooftop they had vacated. Alex spared a glance over his shoulder to see the Turtonator waver on its feet before collapsing, all of its energy spent. Wrath's lieutenant and Envy's two goons were scrambling back up to the roof, their faces blackened with dust from the explosion. The Shadow crowed with laughter. "You're one crazy son of a bitch, birdbrain!"

Alex shrugged. "What's the new plan?"

"Tell you on the way." They ran off towards the west, away from the Galleria. "You know how Clarus City used to have tons of smugglers back in the old days to get around the Unova embargo? They built all these tunnels between buildings to move the contraband around, and some of them are still there. I know this one in a warehouse that will take us pretty close to St. Wulf's. I can't be sure that the Sins don't know about it too, but it's a risk we'll have to take at this point."

"Underground?" Alex and Hierro shared a glance. "Well, if we've got no other choice."

Envy and Wrath's grunts appeared every few blocks, and Alex and Hierro had to be careful to limit the damage of the fire types the anarchists summoned to apprehend them. "Stop playing by the rules!" the Shadow snapped as she hurled a Darumaka into its trainer, and both went down. "This isn't even your home turf anymore!"

"The whole city is my home turf!" The Magmar Alex was fighting inhaled sharply, only for Hierro to drop out of the sky and distract it from producing another gout of flame. "I can't just let them burn up half of Greenpoint. These old wood tenements will go up like kindling!"

The Shadow whipped her quarterstaff around, knocking a Hitmochan off its feet as her Purrloin pounced. "You're such a goody-goody."

"I'm one of the _good guys_ ," Alex muttered. "It's literally the job description."

They managed to get clear again, and soon found themselves standing at the head of High Street, the main artery of Greenpoint's commercial district. Late-night boutiques and fashionable bistros lined the wide thoroughfare, and the buildings were irregularly sized and clustered close together. Alex knew they weren't going to be able to keep to the rooftops, and they would be forced into the open. The Shadow sensed his apprehension and sighed. "We've got no choice. Once we get through here, it's just another three blocks to my bolt hole, and then we should be in the clear." She rolled her shoulders back. "Let's get this over with quick."

Alex and Hierro shot out over the street while the Shadow scurried down a drainpipe. Some of the civilians looked up as Hawlucha Man passed overhead, and Alex could feel their apprehension. They had no doubt seen the explosions from his fights with Wrath's goons as he fought his way across the borough, and he hated being exposed where this many innocent people could get caught up in the fighting.

When he had lost his altitude, he alighted on the street and tried to give a disarming smile as a crowd clustered around him, the air humming with concern. "No need to worry, citizens! Just a routine patrol."

"There you are, you bastard!"

Alex looked up and saw three of Envy's capos sprinting down the street. "Well, crap."

The Shadow blew past him, her staff whipping through the air. She batted aside a shrieking Crobat and sent it flying into another goon's Mawile as Alecto grappled with a Banette. Alex whistled to Hierro and then raised his voice to the civilians. "Please remain calm and move out of the street! My associates and I will handle this and you can go back to your evenings." A noxious ooze seethed up from a nearby storm drain, and Alex barely had time to recoil as a Muk burst from the sewers. "You've got to be kidding me!"

Hierro bounded to the Shadow's side and took over the fight with the Mawile. The fairy type's tensile horns snapped and gnashed at the flying type, but Hierro was far faster, able to jump and dodge every move. One of the capos called out a Roserade, and Hierro turned to deal with the new threat.

Meanwhile, Alex was trying not to get pinned by the Muk's sludgy arms while keeping it away from the fleeing civilians. He saw two young men go for pokeballs on their belts, but Alex waved them away. "Let me handle this! You two get everyone clear!" One of the men looked like he was about to argue, but his buddy grabbed his arm and pulled him along. One of Envy's men whistled to the Muk, and the hulking poison type started to turn its ponderous bulk towards the fight with the Shadow and Hierro. "Oh no you don't," Alex growled and seized one of the wrought-iron chairs from the patio of a nearby bistro. He hurled the chair at the Muk's head, where it sank into the sludge. The Muk bellowed in indignation and wrenched the chair from its head before turning back to Alex.

He turned to the open door of the restaurant and saw the stunned customers huddled inside. "Give me something to throw!" he shouted. His fists and batons would be useless against the Muk, but the chair had done something, so it was worth another shot. One of the waiters rolled a small fire extinguisher out the door, and Alex grinned. "Yeah, that'll work."

As the Muk drew itself up, Alex sprayed it with a burst of white foam. The Muk recoiled from the substance, and Alex fired several more times, driving it back towards the storm drain it had bubbled up from. With each blast from the extinguisher, the poison type's body became reduced in size as the absorbent foam ate away at it. Before it slipped back through the cracks, its trainer returned it to its pokeball, and Alex turned his attention to the other fight.

But Hierro and the Shadow had held their own, and had Envy's capos on the run. Hierro hurled the Mawile back at its trainer, and sent both of them to the ground. Alecto and Apate ran circles around the Banette before Apate sucker punched it into the recovering Crobat. The Shadow ducked past the Roserade's thorny whips and used the butt of her staff to knock the grass type sprawling. When Alex joined the fight, he used his stun batons to quickly drop two of the capos, and the third cut his losses and ran off.

The Shadow hissed through her teeth and grabbed her left arm. "What's wrong?" Alex asked.

"The damn Roserade got me," the Shadow said, and moved her hand just enough for Alex to see the tear in the fabric of her sleeve. The wound below was a long, shallow cut, but the skin around it was already starting to go a mottled yellow and purple as the toxins from the Roserade's claws seeped into the Shadow's bloodstream. When she saw the concern on Alex's face, the Shadow waved him away. "It's going to slow me down, but I can keep going. I'll get it taken care of at St. Wulf's."

They took off into the night again, and it wasn't long before the Shadow dragged Alex into the doorframe of an abandoned three-story building. Her hands shook as she pulled out her lock picks and tinkered with the deadbolt. After watching her struggle for a moment, Alex glanced up and down the quiet street. "No one lives here, right?"

"No, it's been abandoned for at least a decade. Even the squatters don't come around here anymore."

"Then stand back." Alex threw out a kick just to the side of the lock, and the door fell back on its hinges with a bang. The Shadow managed a coy smile. "You sure that's in the hero rulebook, birdbrain?"

"Let's just keep moving."

The Shadow led him into the basement of the sagging building, and Alex wrinkled his nose at the smell of rot and mildew. The Shadow felt around on the floor before flinging back a trapdoor. Hierro shuddered as he looked down into the yawning black tunnel, but Alex rubbed a hand through his feathers. "It's just for a little while, buddy."

Alex, the Shadow, and their pokemon descended into the depths. Apate and Alecto took off ahead and vanished into the darkness. The Shadow fumbled at her equipment belt before pulling out an industrial glow stick. She cracked it, and soon the corridor was filled with sickly greenish phosphorescent light. They trudged along through the tunnel, and after a little while, the Shadow sagged against the wall. "Just give me a sec," she said through clenched teeth. She gathered herself up and continued to limp along. Hierro made a concerned chirp and glanced at Alex. Alex nodded and stooped to get under the Shadow's dangling left arm before standing up to bear her weight.

"What the hell are you doing, birdbrain?" Alex knew she probably meant to sound indignant, but she just sounded tired.

"I promised you I'd get you to St. Wulfric's, and a hero doesn't break his promises."

"You sound like a moron."

"You might be surprised to know that I actually _am_ a moron."

The Shadow's face brightened up, and she let loose a peal of laughter. "Yeah, birdbrain, I noticed."

Eventually, they reached the end of the tunnel. Alecto and Apate waited at the base of an old wooden ladder, and Alex left the Shadow with her pokemon as he climbed up and raised the trapdoor on this end and inch to survey the surroundings. They were in the basement of another seemingly abandoned building, and once he had ascertained that no one was lying in wait for them, he helped the rest of them up.

When they emerged back out on the street, the Shadow nodded towards a church steeple rising above the rooftops. "It's just over there."

"Okay. Stay with me now."

Hierro and Alecto led the way, while Apate crouched by her trainer's heels. At this time of night, just a few of the tenement buildings had lights in the windows, and most of the streetlights had turned off. When they finally emerged in the small square in front of St. Wulfric's, Alex let out a sigh of relief. As he and the Shadow made their way up the stairs to the carved wooden doors of the Arcean church, he heard the heavy tramp of steel-toed boots on the cobblestones behind him.

"Found you," a woman rasped as she ducked out of the shadows across the square. An Arbok slithered after her, and she drew a long, curved knife from her belt. "Get them!"

Three more men appeared, accompanied by their pokemon. Alex slid the Shadow off his shoulders, and she slumped against the door. "Damn it," she whispered. "So fucking close."

"This isn't over yet," Alex growled.

"We can't win this, birdbrain."

"But we're sure as hell not giving up. Hierro! Let's go!"

He and his partner raced down the steps and jumped in tandem to deliver a double kick to a pouncing Liepard. The feline recoiled with a snarl, and Alex and Hierro stood back to back as their foes advanced. Alex knew the odds were long, but he had come this far. Part of being a hero was never giving up, no matter how dark things seemed. The Hammer made no secret that he would always bet on the heroes of Clarus City, and Alex was going to take those odds, even if they seemed long.

As their foes closed in, Alex felt Hierro take a deep breath and puff out his feathers. "So much for a night off," Alex said. When Hierro shrugged, Alex couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, sitting at home isn't really our style." The Arbok lunged, but before Alex even had the chance to counterattack, the snake was blown away by a concussive blast of sound.

"Bang! Bang!" someone screamed, and two more of Alex's assailants were lifted off their feet and flung backwards. "Bangbangbangbangbang _BANG_!" With each vocalization, more of Envy's goons were hurled back against the surrounding masonry, clearing the square.

A dark shape dropped out of the sky and shrieked, making the stained glass windows of the church rattle in their frames. A figure jumped off the Noivern's back and swung a red guitar around on her shoulder. A Loudred and an Exploud jumped down from two nearby buildings, and Alex felt his knees go weak with relief. "Echo! Am I glad to see you!"

"Hawlucha M-Man? Wh-What are you doing in G-Greenpoint?"

"It's a long story." The woman with the Arbok managed to get to her feet and shouted to rally her stunned allies. Alex switched his grip on his batons and settled into a fighting crouch. "For now, want to help me deal with these guys?"

Echo face twisted into a fierce, predatory smile. "Let's wr-reck their shit."


	21. Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

Envy's grunts didn't know what hit them.

Mezzo and Forte hit the cutters with a sonic barrage as Crescita spat pulses of indigo light at any of their foes who managed to stay on their feet. Once Alex and Hierro had managed to catch their breath, they jumped back into the fray. Echo played a loud chord on her guitar and barked an order to Forte. The Exploud bellowed and slammed his right fist into his left palm. Electricity crackled as Forte's fist was surrounded by a brilliant corona of light.

Hierro darted forward, striking his talons together. Sparks of flame appeared around his claws, and he lashed out with his blazing fists. Forte grinned as Hierro fell in next to him, their fists incandescent with elemental power. The shadows on the church walls danced and writhed as the Hawlucha and Exploud lashed out again and again, driving their foes back. A Pangoro lunged at Hierro, only to receive a tandem attack from both Hierro and Forte, sending it flying into a Drapion and Arbok.

Alex sprinted by and dropped one of Envy's thieves with a flying kick to the solar plexus. "When did you learn that?" he asked Hierro. "Did Masakado teach you?" When Hierro nodded, Alex grinned. "That's _so cool_!" Hierro puffed his feathers up and struck his talons again, making the fires around his claws flare up.

Alecto screamed past them, her spectral purple claws glowing with unholy light. The percussive booms of Forte and Mezzo's attacks served as a backdrop to Echo's guitar, and soon her voice rose to join her pokemon.

"In the night we can't rest

In the dark we are blessed

And in moonlight we fight all the harder!

We are the brave at heart

In blood and fire we part

And forever we pray for we are…

 _Blessed and possessed_!"

She segued into a chanting refrain, and Crescita dropped out of the night sky with an echoing blast that scattered their foes like leaves in a gale. The woman with the Arbok struggled to her feet and shouted to her comrades. "Pull back! Retreat!"

Alex and Echo let them run, and Alex sank into a crouch to catch his breath. Hierro made the flames around his claws dissipate with a few flicks of his wrists and leaned against his partner. Alex could hear the flying type's heartbeat thumping in his chest. He glanced over his shoulder at Echo. "Thanks for the save. I owe you one."

"I think y-you owe me an exp-planation of what the hell's g-going on here," she replied.

Alex nodded and got to his feet. He climbed the stairs to the church and helped the Shadow up before pushing open the door with his shoulder. "Follow me, I'll explain everything in here."

As they walked up the aisle of the church between the wooden rows of pews, a middle-aged man burst out of the sacristy in his nightclothes. "I heard a commotion outside! What's going on?"

Alex tried to prop the Shadow up as she started to slump forward. "Please, she's been poisoned. She said she would be safe here, but I think we just led the Sins right to your front door."

"The Sins?" the man whispered, before recovering his composure. "Well, yes, the church offers sanctuary for all who need it, and your friend is no dif—"

"Shepherd Matt," the Shadow groaned. "I really messed up this time."

The man, the Shepherd, evidently, squinted against the gloom and peered down at the Shadow's face. "By Arceus. Oh, you dear, foolish child." He turned to Alex. "Come, bring her here. I'll do what I can to have her patched up."

Alex followed the Shepherd into the sacristy, and the priest went into another room and returned with a small cot. Alex helped the Shadow lie down as the Shepherd fetched a first aid kit. "What was it that got her this time?"

"A Roserade, sir. Your holiness? Pastor?"

"Shepherd Matthew will do," the priest said as he prepared a syringe. He looked at the Shadow's arm, where the skin had gone a mottled yellow and purple. He tutted and swabbed her arm with a bit of numbing alcohol before administering the shot. "This should combat the venom in her system, though she will need plenty of rest to fully recover."

"Thank you," Alex said. "I'm sorry to have brought all this down on you."

Shepherd Matthew sighed. "Arceus teaches us to look after everyone we can, regardless of whether they are saint or sinner. And your friend here, well…" The Shepherd reached down and touched her forehead, wiping away the beads of sweat that had gathered there. "When she was a child, she was raised at the orphanage attached to my parish. Even though she is old enough now to make her own mistakes, I still feel responsible for her. Are you a religious man, mister… ah, I don't think I caught your name."

"Hawlucha Man." At the Shepherd's raised eyebrow, Alex shrugged.

"Well, if you insist. Are you a religious man?"

"Not an Arcean, if that's what you mean. I guess you'd consider me a Unovan pagan, since I light candles for the Twin Dragons on the solstices, but I'm hardly observant. And well, I'm a scientist. I have to see the world as it is, without getting caught up in the metaphysical."

"I'll put in a good word for you with the Lord all the same."

"Thanks. I think." Alex excused himself from the sacristy and went to join Echo in the main hall. The other hero stood in front of the altar, looking at a large stained glass window. "Sorry for that. You deserve some answers."

Echo kept looking up at the stained glass window above the altar. It depicted two men. One was tall with long golden hair and a sword, the other small and wearing dark robes, holding aloft the four-pronged ring of Arceus; a smaller, stylized version of the large metal ring that hung behind the altar, flanked by a glittering diamond, a sparkling pearl, and a large piece of amber in the lower three quadrants. Above the two men, a jagged avian shape seemed to descend from the heavens, light streaming from its feathers. "It had to be St. W-Wulfric's, huh?" Echo muttered. "Just my l-luck."

"Huh?"

"N-Nothing. So wh-what's g-going on here?'

Alex nodded towards the sacristy. "The girl in there is called the Shadow. She's a thief who's crossed paths with me a few times before. She was contracted by Envy to steal a diamond that's supposed to boost the psychic powers of the Sins' new boss, but she decided she didn't want the Sins to have that kind of leverage, so she broke the deal and went on the run. She's been hunted for days, and she needed me to get her here, where she figured she could lay low."

"But th-that didn't work."

"Nope. I don't know what's going to happen next, but it's probably going to get messy. They'll be back, and they'll bring reinforcements. I can't ask you to stay, but I'm going to do what I can to protect the Shadow. She may be a criminal, but this time, her heart's in the right place."

Echo folded her arms and scowled. "You d-dumbass. You really th-think I'm g-going to run away? This is m-my borough, and I'm g-going to protect it. If Envy w-wants a fight, he's g-got one."

"Thanks, but it's not just Envy and his people. He's tapped some of Wrath's bombers for backup."

"Wrath's guys?" To Alex's surprise, Echo's face broke into a grin. "Then w-we're in luck." She pulled out her cell phone. "Give me a minute."

Shepherd Matthew emerged from the sacristy and saw Alex staring up at the stained glass window and the three gems behind the altar. The shepherd pointed towards the man in dark robes. "That's Saint Wulfric pacifying Zapdos with the power of the Lord."

"Who's the other man?"

The pastor pointed to a wooden statue to the left of the altar. It depicted a bearded man sitting astride a Gogoat. A Chatot sat in the open palm of his left hand, and his right was raised in the air, as though delivering a sermon. "Saint Wulfric was abducted and enslaved by northern raiders near what is now modern Coumarine City in Kalos. Over time, he won the trust of his captors, and aided the king of the northmen in quelling a Zapdos who had terrorized their lands, a Zapdos the natives had come to worship as a god. When the beast was subdued, Wulfric undertook his mission to bring the light of Arceus to the lands north of Kalos, and the church canonized him for his efforts."

"We t-tell the st-story a little d-differently where I'm from," Echo said as she joined them by the altar.

Matthew's eyes narrowed. He was too kindly to scowl, but Alex could tell that he was not a man used to being contradicted. "Is that so?"

"Yeah. The w-way I heard it, Saint W-Wulfric was nowhere n-near the Zapdos. King Halvard the G-Golden tamed Zapdos all b-by himself. Wulfric was f-far away, l-leading Halvard's army to r-retake his throne."

"A rousing story, I'm sure, but the historical records are all in agreement that Saint Wulfric was a staunch pacifist who abhorred violence. It's very unlikely he would have led an army."

Echo shrugged. "That's just how the st-story goes it in northern K-Kalos."

A boom from outside cut off Matthew's reply. Alex glanced over at Echo. "They're back."

Echo nodded and swung her guitar around. "M-Mezzo! Forte! W-We've got an encore!"

Alex turned to Shepherd Matthew. "Stay here, and try to stay safe." He whistled to Hierro, and together they raced out the church doors. Crescita was already in the air, shrieking at the new adversaries. Fire and poison types snarled and hissed in the shadows, and the cold glint of metal shone in their trainers' hands. But one man stood under a flickering street light, a Luxray crouching at his heels.

Yousef al Najem, known to most as Envy, smiled a languid smile as Alex and Hierro bounded down the stairs of the church. "So, you're Hawlucha Man. I thought you'd be taller."

"I'm tall enough to kick your ass," Alex growled as he kicked one of Envy's thugs in the chest, sending him sprawling into the next grunt in line. But Alex never made it to al Najem; he was tackled by an Arcanine and pinned beneath the fire type's paws. Hierro was locked in combat with two Bisharp, and a Drapion loomed up behind him. Alex tried to squirm out from under the Arcanine's bulk, but the canine was heavy, and fire pooled around its jaws. Alex tried to activate the stun function on his batons, but before he could shift his fingers, a Dusknoir burst from the shadows and delivered a sharp uppercut to the Arcanine's snout. The fire type reared back in surprise, giving Alex the opening he needed. He kicked the Arcanine in its chest, sending it whimpering to the ground. Alex pivoted on his heel and leapt at the Drapion, jabbing his batons up and into the poison type's mouth and letting loose with the strongest stun setting. Hierro used the opening to whirl around with a spinning kick, knocking the two Bisharp flat.

"Not bad," al Najem hissed. "But not good enough!" His Luxray's mane crackled with electricity, and before Alex could think to get to cover, the electric type roared, discharging the voltage.

The Dusknoir whirled and stopped the electric attack with a rippling black barrier. A masked man in a tuxedo put a hand on Alex's shoulder. "Looks like I'm making a habit out of saving your impulsive ass, Hawlucha Man." The Luxray's attack dissipated, and the Dusknoir lowered its hands. The Phantom flipped his cape back and glared at al Najem. "Are you done, Envy? Because any child can tell you that after lightning…"

"Comes the _THUNDER_!" Echo roared. She struck a loud, sustained note that her pokemon amplified into a sonic assault as powerful as Alex had seen. Envy and his Luxray were lifted off their feet and slammed into the wall at the far side of the plaza. The Phantom snapped his fingers, and ghost types started to bubble up from the pavement, shrieking and howling as they rose into the air, only to rapidly descend on Envy's reinforcements in a flurry of burning claws and flashing fangs.

The Phantom twirled his cane around and drew a thin dueling blade from the handle. "Echo explained everything to me. My ghosts and I will keep Wrath's bombers occupied. You and Echo make Envy regret he ever set foot in my town." He twirled his sword in a fencer's salute and charged into the thickest crowd of anarchists, screaming a war cry. His Dusknoir swept after him, emitting an exultant hum from the antenna on its head.

Hierro struck his claws together, and fire blossomed around his fists again. Alex settled into a fighting stance and stood back to back with his partner. "I'm never going to get over how cool that is, by the way." Hierro smirked, and then the enemy was upon them. They ducked and twirled, lashing out with kicks and punches, felling trainer and pokemon alike.

Atop the church stairs, Forte and Mezzo had dropped to a low crouch, their arms rigid to brace themselves against the fury of Echo's playing. She whipped her head back, her platinum blonde hair framing her face like a halo, before starting in on a new chord progression.

"Across the waves his voice is heard

He rules the seas

I sing the tales of yesteryear

 _HAIL THE KING!_ "

The Phantom's blade flashed in the streetlights, each flicker punctuated by a fresh spray of blood. A Typhlosion reared up, the flames on its back blazing white hot. As it sucked in a breath, the Phantom whipped out his free hand. "Gregor!" His Dusknoir appeared in front of him, and just as the Typhlosion released a torrent of fire, the Dusknoir raised his right hand and conjured another shadowy barrier that drank in the flames. Gregor's left hand drew back, and a glowing orange and yellow orb appeared in the open palm. Once the Typhlosion had exhausted itself, Gregor thrust his hand forward, hurling the orb at the fire type and sending it into a screeching cloud of ghost types.

"And when we hear the dragon's roar

The Golden King is here!

With flashing eyes

And thunder's roll

 _RAISE YOUR SWORDS_!"

Several of the Sins' enforcers were lifted from their feet by the sonic force of Echo's pokemon. Despite the powerful blasts, Alex found that he was not hampered by the sound-based attacks like he had been in previous team-ups with Echo. So long as he remained close to the Phantom's Dusknoir, there seemed to be an insulating effect produced by the ghost type's constant atonal humming. Alex wasn't sure how it worked, but it explained why Echo and the Phantom had been such effective collaborators for so long.

Al Najem lunged at Alex, a knife glinting in his hand. Alex retreated a pace before bringing up his baton and blocked the thief's next strike. He jumped up and delivered a kick to the center of al Najem's chest, making the man stagger. "You should be honored," Envy hissed as he came in for another attack. "It's not often I get my hands dirty like this."

Alex scoffed. "I can see why you don't. Your technique sucks." He switched his grip on his baton to clutch it halfway up its length, in the center of his fist. He struck out with an uppercut just beneath Envy's ribcage, throwing enough power behind the blow to lift Envy a few inches into the air. As the thief leaned into the punch, Alex head-butted al Najem in the center of his forehead. It was a risky move, and left Alex a little stunned, but the look of shock on al Najem's face was worth it. "You should just call the retreat now," Alex growled. "Your boss won't be happy you lost the diamond, but she'll be even more pissed if you lost the diamond _and_ got your ass kicked."

Envy's Luxray pounced, lightning crackling along its incisors, but Hierro vaulted over Alex's shoulders and slammed one blazing fist into the middle of the electric type's face before somersaulting onto its back and laying it low with a dropkick. The Luxray struggled to its feet, but before it could retaliate, Hierro screamed and kicked it down again. Alex rushed at al Najem, swept the man's legs out from under him, and clubbed the Sin with one of his batons. The man sank to the pavement, but Alex hauled him back up by his shirt collar. "Listen up, asshole. Forget the diamond. Forget the Shadow. Cut your losses and slink off with your tail between your legs." He shoved Envy against one of the streetlamps. "Look around. There's no way you're going to win this."

The Phantom's ghost army had al Najem's goons on the defensive, and any that managed to fight clear were immediately caught up in Echo's sonic onslaught. Envy himself was bruised and bleeding, but he still managed to crack a mocking smile. "You really think so, Hawlucha Man?" He popped the clasp on his belt, and yanked a drawstring. There was a clatter as the pins were pulled from the grenades al Najem had worn along his waist, and his belt dropped to the ground. Alex released the thief and staggered backwards.

"Hierro, run! Grenade!"

The Phantom whistled, and his ghosts scattered into the night. His Dusknoir seized him and they disappeared into the shadows. A fraction of a second later, Alex felt a heavy hand grab his arm and yank him backwards. He had the strangest sense of being pulled through a narrow tube, and a hot, sulfurous wind blowing on his face. Then he was blinking in the light of St. Wulfric's, beside the Phantom and Hierro. Crescita had vanished in a flash of red light as Echo hurried Mezzo and Forte inside, and the Exploud threw his bulk against the heavy wooden door.

In the square, there was a bright flash that Alex saw through the stained glass windows. The Phantom let out a breath. "Just a flashbang, thank Arceus."

Alex smoothed down Hierro's feathers and turned to the Phantom. "Thanks for the save. Again."

"Don't thank me. That was all Gregor."

Alex inclined his head to the Dusknoir. "I'm in your debt. Thank you." The Dusknoir's hum changed slightly in cadence and tone, but it remained otherwise impassive.

"Light on your feet, aren't you?" Envy's voice rang out, loud enough that Alex assumed that he was using some kind of megaphone. "Now, I've got no wish to storm a church. I'm a reasonable man, and I'll offer you a deal. If you give me what's mine, I'm willing to forget this unpleasantness and we can all go about our nights.

"But if you don't, well. It seems some of the hired help I've brought on for this job have called their boss. Mr. Aukai doesn't share my scrupulous nature or moral code. He will have no qualms digging your corpses from the rubble and taking the diamond from your cold dead fingers. He'll be here in just a few minutes. You have until then to decide." The megaphone crackled as al Najem turned it off and then turned it on again. "And before you try anything of the sort, know that I've stationed my men at all possible exits. You may have bloodied our noses, but we can hold you long enough to take that diamond."

"They're going to bomb my church?" Shepherd Matthew gasped.

"Not if we have anything to say about it," Alex replied. "Phantom, you can teleport. Take the diamond and get far away from here."

"Hell no. If Wrath's coming here, then I'm staying."

"D-Don't be so st-stubborn, F-Fancypants," Echo said. "We c-can't l-let Dominion get this d-diamond."

The Phantom scowled. "I've been hunting Wrath for five years. Every time, he's managed to slip through my fingers and run away. But if we keep the diamond here, he'll be forced to stand his ground and fight. I can _beat_ him, you know I can!"

"This is m-more important than your st-stupid vendetta!"

"What could be more important than taking out the biggest threat to Clarus City?"

"Letting Dominion become an even bigger threat!" Alex snapped. "And there's more than just the diamond at stake! Wrath has no problem with civilian casualties, and there are too many innocents around here for a fight to escalate. If we can show them that the diamond isn't here, then they'll have to leave to look for it."

"Enough!" The three heroes whirled to see the Shadow standing against the altar, her face pale, but her back straight. "No one's running, but they aren't going to get the diamond."

Shepherd Matthew stepped between the heroes and the thief. "My church is at risk here. If you just give them the gem, that man promised they would go away. That might be the easiest path."

"Don't t-trust criminals to k-keep their word," Echo said.

"We should stand and fight," the Phantom said. "And if things look difficult, Hawlucha Man and I can keep Wrath pinned while Gregor retreats to take the diamond. He'll fall back to a secure location, and then when Wrath is in custody, I'll drop the damn thing into the middle of the ocean."

"Now wait a second!" the Shadow snapped. "That's not—"

"Time's up!" Envy's voice boomed from outside.

"Little Tepig, little Tepig," another voice drawled, made hoarse by what sounded like years of heavy smoking. "Let me come in!"

"Oh, g-go fuck yourself!" Echo shouted back. At Shepherd Matthew's stern look, the heroine threw up her hands and mouthed "Really?"

Aukai tsked. "Then I guess I'll just have to huff, and puff, and _blow your house down_!"

Alex heard the ticking noise at the same time Echo did. "Get down!" she screamed. Alex tackled Shepherd Matthew to the floor of the church and dragged him behind a pew. "Forte!" Echo shouted again, and Alex heard the air whistling through the Exploud's pipes.

Gregor wrapped the Phantom in an embrace and sank into a shadow. "No!" the Phantom screamed as he strained against his pokemon. " _No_! I need to stay and fight! I need—"

His words were lost as he was pulled into the inky darkness, and Forte bellowed. Alex clapped his hands over his ears and pressed himself to the ground.

And then the world exploded into light, and then fire, and finally dust.

When Alex realized he was still alive and conscious, he reached up and flicked on the thermal vision Jiro had installed on his visor to see through the whirling dust. Beside him, Hierro's back rose and fell in a regular tempo, and after running a hand through his partner's feathers, Alex could see no obvious wounds. He then checked Shepherd Matthew, and the man groaned under his touch. Alex's hand came away sticky with blood, and he switched back to his normal vision. The Shepherd had a cut on his head, but seemed otherwise unharmed.

As the dust settled, Alex saw Forte standing alone in the center aisle of the church, holding a large piece of debris up to prevent it from crushing a shell-shocked Echo. Somehow, the Exploud had managed to use a sonic pulse to turn the force of Wrath's bomb back on itself and spare the church from complete destruction. The entire front wall was blown open, but everything behind Forte had been spared the worst of the explosion. Alex could see blood running down the pokemon's arms, and Forte trembled as he struggled to stand. With a final grunt of effort, he shoved the rubble to the ground and sank to his knees, crouching protectively over his trainer.

The Shadow was slumped against the back wall of the church, directly beneath the window depicting the northern king and St. Wulfric subduing the Zapdos. It somehow (Alex refused to call it a miracle) had not been shattered.

Outside, Wrath barked a command, and his men began to advance from the far side of the scarred plaza. Next to Alex, a chunk of rubble moaned and stretched out a hand. Alex hurried to Mezzo's side and helped the Loudred to his feet.

He needed a plan, and fast. He couldn't take on all of the anarchists alone, even if he wasn't exhausted from his pursuit across two boroughs and the earlier fight. And then he saw a rope dangling from the church steeple.

"Mezzo, listen to me." The Loudred groaned, but managed to stay on his feet. "I need you to amplify something for me. You'll know it when you hear it. Can you do that? One more sonic boom?" The Loudred grimaced, but nodded. Alex gave him a pat on the arm. "'Atta boy. Hierro, what about you?" The Hawlucha rose to his feet, dusted himself off and gave Alex a thumbs up. "This will all be over soon, buddy. But I need you to make one last charge. Do you trust me?" Hierro rolled his eyes, but he settled into a crouch, ready to spring forward at Alex's signal. "Thank you," Alex said. "All right. On my mark… _now_!"

He and Hierro sprinted forward, screaming at the top of their voices. Alex heard Mezzo draw in a breath, but spared a glance over his shoulder. "Not yet! Hang on!"

The first of the anarchists cleared the door, and Hierro fell on them in a frenzy, spinning in a maelstrom of swift kicks and fiery punches. Alex lashed out with his batons, but he didn't allow himself to become embroiled in the fight. A Scyther swooped down at him, only to receive a face full of flames for its trouble. Hierro pivoted and back-flipped into a Machoke before springing forward and clobbering one of Wrath's grunts into submission. Alex ran forward and sprang onto the back of an overturned pew, using it as a jumping-off point to clear the heads of his foes and grab hold of the bell rope.

"Mezzo, _now_!"

The church bell began to toll, and Mezzo amplified the clanging into a sonic shockwave that he aimed straight into the cluster of anarchists. Hierro shot into the air, above the range of the attack, and looped back over Mezzo's head. The anarchists were stopped cold by the shockwave, and Alex slid down the rope, ignoring the burning sensation on his palms. "Keep it up!" he shouted as he yanked the rope a second time.

Mezzo inhaled deeply and braced himself, gripping the pew beside him hard enough that Alex could see the veins bulging in the Loudred's arm. Alex shouted a wordless battle cry and set the bell clanging again. This time, the sonic power lifted Alex and the anarchists off their feet. Alex clung to the rope and felt his eardrum pop, and he tried to ignore the trickle of blood running down the side of his face. The anarchists and their pokemon were hurled down the stone steps.

An Incineroar bounded up into the ruined church, only for Hierro to dive down and slam a clawed foot into the dark type's face. The feline yowled as Hierro bounced off the ground, following up his initial strike with a flurry of sharp punches to the Incineroar's abdomen. Alex lunged and tackled the beast, knocking it off balance long enough for Hierro to shoot up into the air and spread his wings against the church's vaulted ceiling. He stiffened his muscles and descended with a wild paean cry, slamming into the Incineroar and sending it flying back out of the church.

The shadows by the ruined fountain in the center of the plaza shifted, and Gregor sprang forth, catching the Incineroar in midair. The Dusknoir wasted no time in contorting its spectral form and supplexing the dark type into the pavement. The Phantom burst from his partner's back. "Wrath! You're not getting away this time!" At the sound of his voice, his ghosts reappeared and joined the fight, pressing the anarchists back. Alex and Hierro raced out into the night again as the Phantom drew his dueling blade and engaged Aukai.

Alex jumped over a snarling Banette and spread his wings, soaring out over the plaza and dropping down on Aukai with a kick to the shoulder. The mad bomber staggered back with a snarl. The Phantom whirled on Alex, but before he could say anything, Alex slashed his hand through the air. "You said before that you wanted my help on this. We're stronger together." The Phantom gave a brusque nod, and together they set on Wrath.

The anarchist was faster and stronger than Envy, but all of his moves were telegraphed. He wielded his jagged knife with all the finesse of a drunkard, and Alex and Hierro had no trouble dancing back from the telegraphed strikes. Each time, Alex expected a feint, but none came. The Phantom drove his blade into Wrath's thigh, and Aukai cried out in pain. He lashed out at the Phantom with thishe knife, even as his left hand reached into his leather jacket.

"He's going for his gun!" the Phantom shouted.

"Not a chance!" Alex thrust one baton into Wrath's chest, and Hierro sprang over his partner's back to deliver a punch to the anarchist's face. When Alex heard Aukai's nose crunch, he swept up with his right hand and slammed his second baton against Aukai's left forearm, making the bomber drop his gun. Alex kicked it away and forced Wrath to his knees.

Around him, the anarchists closed in, only to be stopped in their tracks by a piercing note from a red electric guitar. There was no sonic blast, only a sound that held all of the combatants rapt. Echo stood atop the church stairs once again, silhouetted by the light behind her.

"I, high king

Sovereign and servant

Holder of divine power

Bestowed on a windswept shore!"

A light flashed behind the stylized Zapdos, and in the glare Echo's hair seemed to shine brighter.

"Thou shalt know me by my fruits

The abundance in which we grew

The signs and wonders at our feet

Which the grace of the gods revealed!

My kingdom prospered and grew!"

Wrath's anarchists saw that Echo's music no longer posed a threat to them, and they advanced warily, their knives glittering. Echo played on undaunted, her face a stony visage, as though carved in marble. As soon as the first of the anarchists mounted the church steps, a sonic pulse slammed down on them from above. Crescita swooped out of the sky, her black and indigo wings flaring as she stabilized herself and unleashed another pulse. Echo's face twisted into a savage grin, and she struck a long, lingering note that built into a crescendo.

"I am the fool of Rovengald!

I am the tamer of the dragon Uthald!

I am the servant of the northern people!

The thunder… answers to _ME_!"

By now, Mezzo and Forte had limped to her side, and with a whistle of wind, they inhaled.

" _THE BLOOD OF KINGS IS IN! MY! VEINS!_ "

Any anarchists left standing were forced to their knees, as though made to bow before the sonic hero. Alex saw them writhe as the force of her song made the blood vessels in their eyes burst and their eardrums rupture. Their pokemon were similarly affected, reduced to trembling at their masters' heels in the face of Echo's superior power. Were it not for Gregor's interference, Alex was sure that he and the Phantom would be likewise incapacitated.

"Well, that _was_ impressive." Alex's head whipped up at the sound of Envy's voice coming from inside the church. Echo whirled, ready to strike another chord. The thief tutted as he stepped out into the center aisle, dragging Shepherd Matthew's prone form with him. He laid his knife against the man's throat. "Hand over the diamond, and the good Shepherd lives. Refuse, and he dies."

Alex gritted his teeth. Keeping the diamond out of the Sins' hands was important, but he couldn't gamble an innocent life over a piece of rock. But then, the choice was hardly his to make, because the diamond was still with...

"Wait," the Shadow said from behind the altar. She heaved herself to her feet and lurched down towards Envy, spreading her hands to show she had no weapons. "Don't hurt him. He's suffered enough."

Al Najem's eyes narrowed to slits. "Whether or not I hurt him is entirely up to you, my dear."

The Shadow drew the diamond from a pouch on her belt. "You want this so bad? Fine." She held it out to al Najem, and just before he took it from her, the Shadow snatched it back. "On one condition. You keep to the terms of your previous offer. I give you this, and you all leave. The fighting stops, and you go report to your boss like the pathetic little Lilipup you are."

Al Najem scowled at the insult, but his eyes were locked on the diamond in her hand. "Fine. Give me the stone."

The Shadow tossed it to him, and he caught it out of the air, shoving Shepherd Matthew away from him as he did. Al Najem strode out of the church and snapped his fingers at Wrath's men. "All right, up and at 'em. We've drawn enough attention for one night." He yanked the Phantom's sword from Wrath's leg and tossed it at the masked hero's feet. Wrath howled in pain, but al Najem hauled him to his feet and supported his weight. As the anarchists limped off into the shadows, Wrath forced out a laugh.

"You gave your word, huh? But I sure as hell didn't. Light 'em up!"

Several of his men pressed the buttons on detonators, and Alex threw himself to the ground as several buildings around the plaza exploded. The screams of people hiding in their tenements filled the air, and fires burst along the shingled roofs. Alex could only watch in mute horror as the aging buildings sagged and collapsed.

The Phantom swept past him. "Come on! If we hurry we can—"

Alex grabbed the Phantom's arm. "No. We're needed here."

"They're getting away!"

"Let them. We'll have other chances. There are people here who need our help."

The Phantom jerked his arm out Alex's grasp. "Don't be a fool! The first responders will be here any minute!"

Echo shook her head as she walked over to them. "We are the f-first responders."

"But the villains—"

Alex grabbed the Phantom's lapel. "Are you a hero or not?" he snapped. "These people need us. They need _you_." He shoved the Phantom away. "So make your choice. Are you a hero, or are you just a vigilante with an axe to grind?"

Behind his mask, the Phantom glared at Alex, but Gregor laid a hand on his trainer's shoulder. At the ghost type's touch, the Phantom went stiff, and then abruptly sighed. "You're right. Some things are more important." He clapped his hands together and whistled to his ghostly legion. "All right! Search every building! Save whoever you can! If you find someone you can't help, fetch one of us. Go!" The swarm of Ghastly, Haunter, Banette, and Mismagius dove into the wreckage. The Phantom then snapped his fingers at a pair of Lampent and a Chandelure. "You three, start controlling the fires. If you find anyone still alive, don't get too close, and let me know _immediately_." Finally, he turned to Gregor. "Do what you must." The psychopomp nodded solemnly and bled into the shadows.

Alex and Hierro worked with Mezzo to shift as much rubble as they could and pull any survivors from the wreckage until the rescue crews arrived. Alex was weak and shaking with fatigue, and his hands were raw and sore. He did his best to wipe the dust from his face and wondered if he could hit up the Phantom for cab fare to get home.

As the EMTs and fire fighters spread out across the plaza, Captain Ito debriefed with the Phantom and Echo. Alex trudged over to the cracked and broken church steps where the Shadow sat beside a rather stunned Shepherd Matthew. "Are you both all right?"

The Shepherd shook himself out of his daze. "A little rattled, but compared to this…" He gazed out at the wreckage of the plaza. "I'll be fine."

"I'm sorry about the church."

"It's… well, it's not ideal. But the grace of Arceus will see us through." He smiled weakly up at Alex. "And on the less metaphysical side of things, St. Ulfi's in Ridgewood will help us coordinate the rebuilding." He rose slowly to his feet. "I'll need to make quite a lot of calls in the morning but for now… I think I need to lie down." He trudged off through the wreckage of his church, and Alex sat down beside the Shadow.

"What about you?"

The thief shrugged. "Still a little weak. I think I bruised a rib or two in all the excitement, and the poison still hasn't run its course yet. But I'll live."

Alex hung his head. "I can't believe that after all that, we still had to give up the diamond. I'll need to let Jiro know, we need a plan to—"

"I didn't give them the diamond." The Shadow's mouth turned up into an impish grin. "Do you _really_ think I'd go through all the trouble to get it this far only to fork it over at the last second? By Arceus, birdbrain, you really are dense."

"But… I saw…"

The Shadow rolled her eyes. "A good thief _never_ gives back a prize. Look, I may not have been entirely honest with you. I didn't come to St. Wulf's because it's a safe house. I came for that." She hooked a thumb over her shoulder.

"The window?"

"Not the window, dingus. Below it. The gems on the altar?"

"Uh…"

"The _diamond_ on the altar. Well, it was really a hunk of glass, a little parish like this couldn't afford a diamond that big." The Shadow raised an eyebrow. "Still not getting it? Didn't you notice that the hunk of worthless rock there is almost exactly the same shape as the diamond the Sins were after?"

"You didn't…"

"I did."

"You switched them out?"

"I just said that, birdbrain. But I figure little Ms. Exploud over there blew out your eardrums like five times tonight, so I guess I can cut you some slack." The Shadow leaned back. "Yup, I figure Envy is going to be pretty peeved when he finds out. But by then, I'll have dumped the genuine article somewhere in the bay, and he'll just have to think we were all duped. Pretty clever, right?"

"You'd give up a prize like that? Couldn't you fleece that diamond for enough money to set yourself up for life?"

"The look on Envy's face when he realizes is payment enough, believe me."

Alex smiled and rose to his feet with a groan, and Hierro jumped up beside him. "You know, I think I'm detecting an altruistic streak."

"Don't get your hopes up."

Alex smiled. "If you say so." He paused. "This was almost… fun. Maybe we should do it again sometime. I could make a hero out of you yet."

"Keep dreaming, birdbrain!"

"Whatever you say, Shadow." He started to walk away, but the Shadow called him back.

"Bridget. My name's Bridget. Bri to my friends." She grimaced. "Well, it would be, if I had any friends." The thief shrugged. "I figure, maybe, on the _slight_ chance we cross paths again, it's less of a mouthful than 'the Shadow'."

"See you around then, Bri." He started to walk away, but paused. A show of trust like that deserved one in return. Even if she was a crook. He turned back and tapped his chest. "I'm Alex."

Bridget wrinkled her nose. "If it's all the same to you, I think I'll stick with birdbrain." Then she sighed. "Look, I'm going to get serious for a second, okay? I owe you for what you did tonight. I asked for your protection, and you didn't even hesitate to help me. No, stop, don't give me that whole 'that's what heroes do' crap. This is hard enough for me to say already." She shook her head. "You don't even know me. Hell, all you know about me is that we're on different sides of the law and that I work for the kind of people who want you dead. But you helped me, and I… I appreciate that. So like I said, I owe you."

"You're welcome. But you don't owe me anything. I do this pro bono."

"I told you to cut the heroic talk for a second." The Shadow shook her head. "Even if you say I don't have to make this up to you, I _want_ to. I don't like being in people's debt, so I'm going to find a way to pay you back. I've got ears in a lot of places, so if I learn anything that might help you, I'll pass it along." She smirked. "Besides, after tonight, I want to stick it to the Sins too."

"Well, you know where I live. Apparently."

The Shadow shrugged and held out the fist of her uninjured arm for Alex to tap. "See you around, birdbrain. Try not to get yourself killed."

Alex bumped her fist. "You too." He looked up at the sky, already brightening with the first light of dawn, and ran his hand through Hierro's feathers. "Let's go home, buddy. At least we can sleep in like Jiro told us to."


	22. Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

"Mr. Publick?" Jonathan looked up from the paperwork strewn across his desk and blinked. It was the new girl, standing in the doorway to his office. Helen? Hayley. "Will you need anything else tonight?"

Jonathan shook his head. "No, no, feel free to head home. I'll lock up when I'm done."

The paralegal nodded and eased his door closed again. Jonathan shook his head and smiled. She was young, and she'd outgrow the nerves soon enough. Coming right out of college and stepping into a role at Avery, Smith, and Wesson was enough to make anyone a little nervous, he supposed. But he had been a partner here for over a decade, and a senior partner for a third of that time. After walking through the same office door for so many years, the sense of awe at working at one of the most prestigious law offices in Clarus City had worn off. Now it was just a day job. And an evening job. And occasionally a late night job.

He went back to marking up the contract on his desk, and by the time his cell phone buzzed, the shadows in his office had lengthened. Jonathan accepted the call and put it on speaker. "Hello honey," he said.

"Going to be burning the midnight oil again?" his wife asked, her voice crackling as it came through the phone speaker.

"Afraid so. You don't mind leaving some dinner in the fridge for me?"

"And put the kids to bed. You know, I'm pretty sure they've forgotten what their father looks like."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'll find a way to make it up to them. Tell them I said good night?"

"I will. You do what you need to." He could hear the smile in his wife's voice. "What are you working on tonight? The usual stuff, or… pro bono?"

"For now, just the usual, but I've got some pro bono work on the pile too. It's going to be a late night, I think."

His wife was quiet for a moment. "Just stay safe, John."

"I will. I'll see you when I get home."

He kept working until the long summer twilight finally faded into night. When his office was plunged into darkness, Jonathan stood up, stretched, padded quietly over to his office door, and peered out. The rest of the floor was silent, lit only by idle computer monitors. Satisfied he was alone, Jonathan removed his diamond cufflinks and set them on his desk. He opened a small coat closet at the back of his office and removed the garment bag within. He quickly stripped out of his slacks, tie, and button-down shirt, and pulled on the new suit. He paused only to take the pokeball off the window ledge before slipping out to the elevators and riding it up to the top floor of his building. From there, he drew out the spare set of custodian keys he had made and unlocked the small closet that led to the rooftop HVAC access. He emerged onto the roof of the office tower, the noise of the city filtering up from the street thirty stories below.

He slid on his blue and white striped helmet and tossed his pokeball into the air. "All right George, let's go!" His Braviary soared up into the air, beating his wings three times before plunging back down to the roof. Jonathan reached out and ran his hand through his partner's feathered crown and strapped a simple harness to the flying type's back. He secured himself with a carabineer and patted George's neck twice.

They shot out over Clarus City, gaining altitude with each powerful beat of George's wings. The Braviary weaved through the glittering spires of downtown Clarus while his sharp eyes scanned the streets below for any sort of disturbance. As they shot over Foundry Park, a boom echoed through the steel and glass canyons. George whirled in the air and raced towards the sound as sirens started to blare on the surrounding streets. The explosion had occurred on the third floor of a skyscraper, and chunks of masonry and broken glass littered the street. Figures clothed in black body armor had infiltrated the crowd of panicked civilians, led by a woman with a Pyroar crouching at her heels. The woman raised a machine gun in the air and fired several rounds, making people scream.

George shrieked and dove as his trainer disconnected from the flying harness. Jonathan dropped to the street as George soared back up into the air to engage a flock of hostile flying type pokemon. Jonathan seized the gun of one of the men in body armor, wrenched it from his hands, and removed the magazine before using the gun to strike the side of the man's head. He dropped with a groan, and Jonathan whirled on the next foe. When he had similarly disarmed and incapacitated the man, he lifted his fingers to his lips and gave a piercing whistle. "Have no fear, citizens! Captain Unova is here!" He pointed down the street. "Please proceed in an orderly fashion to… oh no." He tackled a woman to the ground as one of the armored men raised his gun. The spray of bullets went wide as George dropped from the sky and struck the man with his closed talons, sending the gunman flying backwards. George pivoted and tensed up the muscles in his wings, sweeping into a Gurdurr and Monferno.

"Thanks for the save, partner!" Jonathan called as he helped the woman to her feet and turned towards the smoldering building. He started to shove his way through the panicked crowd, but the press of people hampered him. He cursed under his breath, knowing that if he didn't hurry, he wouldn't be able to stop Pride from whatever she was planning. "Please, let me through! I need to… I'm sorry, please stand aside so that I—"

A shriek sounded above Captain Unova's head, sharper and more high-pitched than George's call. A red and white blur dropped from the sky into a knot of Pride's enforcers. "Citizens of Clarus City!" someone shouted over the chaos. "The police have set up a cordon one block back! Make your way there to receive emergency medical attention. The CCPD will take things from here!"

Jonathan looked up to where the voice was coming from, and saw a young man in a black and red costume standing on the stone terrace of the Clarus Gazette offices. As the crowd started to hasten back to the cordon, he spread his arms wide and jumped, only for the fabric of his wingsuit to catch the wind and carry him aloft. "As for you!" he shouted at Pride's fifteen or so enforcers. "Get ready for a world of hurt!"

He dropped out of the sky just as his partner pokemon hurled a Croagunk out of the melee. Hawlucha Man drew a pair of batons from his belt and jabbed them into the poison type's back, and an electric current coursed through the amphibian's body. Captain Unova whistled again. "Hawlucha Man!"

The winged hero glanced over at Jonathan. " _You're_ here?"

"Just passing by." Jonathan turned on his heel and grabbed the wrist of an oncoming man, grasping hard enough that he dropped the knife he was holding. With a grunt, Jonathan hurled him into a charging Primeape, and both man and pokemon fell in a heap.

Hawlucha Man sprinted past, his batons twirling. "I was hoping to stop this before the bomb went off, but Hierro and I were too late." He delivered a flying kick to an Electabuzz as his Hawlucha jumped into the air to support George. "The Sins are after something in that building, and they sent Wrath in to get it. I'm hoping to lure him out here before he can do any more damage. After my last run in with him, I hear he's spoiling for a fight to settle the score."

"So the best way to get him out is to put pressure on Pride?"

"Pretty much." Hawlucha Man pivoted to stand back-to-back with Captain Unova. "You willing to back me up?"

"Helping out is what heroes do."

Hawlucha Man grinned. "Awesome. Let's kick some ass."

Jonathan lashed out with a kick at one of Pride's men and signaled to George. The Braviary spun in the air and dropped back towards the ground, using his rigid wings to batter human and pokemon alike, clearing a path for the two heroes. Hawlucha Man and Captain Unova sprinted through the passageway just as a CCPD riot squad arrived behind them. Hawlucha Man spared a quick glance over his shoulder. "Let them handle the stragglers and protect the civilians. We've got to take Pride down."

His Hawlucha partner swooped down and struck its talons together, setting its fists ablaze. It turned on a Cacturne, Weavile and Scrafty that were attempting to flank Hawlucha Man and beat them back with a series of fiery punches and lightning-fast kicks.

George screamed out a warning as Pride turned on the two heroes. Her Pyroar jumped to her defense, only for Captain Unova's Braviary to tackle it out of the air. Jonathan put on a burst of speed, snatching the woman's pistol from her hand and dancing out of her reach as he disarmed the weapon. "I'd never hit a woman," Jonathan said. "But for you, I'll make an exception."

"Damn blowhard," Pride growled, snapping her whip and wrapping the leather cable around Jonathan's right wrist. She gave the whip a yank, dragging Jonathan off-balance, but before she could capitalize on the opening, Hawlucha Man blew by the star-spangled hero. He dropped into a crouch and swept Pride's legs out from underneath her with a spinning kick. The woman rolled backwards and came up with a snarl. "You again?"

"Scared to fight me without your boss backing you up?"

"I don't need any help kicking your insolent ass." Pride cracked her whip. "I seem to recall you having a few more allies last time."

"I've got all the help I need."

Pride's Pyroar yowled as George sent it flying through the air with a powerful blast of wind. Hierro squared off against one of Pride's enforcers, ducking under his guard. The Hawlucha slammed a fiery uppercut to the center of the man's chest before jumping back and delivering a two-footed kick to the same place. The man was lifted off his feet crashed into one of his comrades, and both of them fell to the pavement.

Hawlucha Man barked out a laugh and twirled his batons before leaping at Pride. "Not so tough now, huh?" The woman was forced onto the defensive, giving ground under Hawlucha Man's rain of blows. One of her capos rushed to help her, but Hawlucha Man ducked under his knife and knocked him off balance. "Captain Unova!" he shouted. "Deal with him!"

Jonathan was on him in seconds, delivering a combination of punches that culminated in a roundhouse kick. The man bent double, and Jonathan grabbed his left arm, hurling him towards a charging Granbull. George screamed down from the sky, talons balled up like fists, and struck the canine with a quick one-two jab before buffeting a Scyther with his wings.

Hawlucha Man threw up his left arm and let Pride wrap her whip around his wrist. She tried to jerk him off-balance, but Hawlucha Man pulled back. Neither one had the strength to disarm the other, and they struggled in a stalemate for several seconds until Jonathan grabbed the whip and gave it a sharp yank, jerking it out of Pride's hand.

"Thanks," Hawlucha Man said as he shook out its coils. "Took a bit of a gamble there."

"Don't mention it!"

"We're not out of the woods yet! Wrath's goons, eight o'clock!"

"Leave it to me." Jonathan whistled to George and sprinted towards the anarchists emerging from the smoldering building. By now, he and Hawlucha Man had managed to incapacitate or knock out about eight of Pride's fifteen capos, and it seemed that Wrath had only brought five to reinforce them. Knives flashed in the streetlights as the anarchists braced for a fight, but Captain Unova didn't falter. Without breaking his momentum, he drove his fist into the jaw of one of the men, knocking him flat before he could even summon a pokemon.

George swooped to his partner's defense, tackling a Talonflame out of the air and hurling it into a Weezing. Jonathan jumped up for a spinning aerial kick that dropped a second man. A third rushed in, his knife poised to strike at Jonathan's chest. Captain Unova moved on instinct, sliding his weight back and out of the way before grabbing the man's wrist and applying pressure. When he dropped the blade, Jonathan drove his fist into the man's kidneys and knocked the wind from his lungs. In his peripheral vision, he saw Hawlucha Man's partner diving towards him. He shifted his weight and shoved the man to the side. "He's all yours!"

Hierro descended in a flurry of claws and talons, striking the man from above before he could recover. Pride's remaining men had rallied around her, forcing Hawlucha Man to retreat. He fell back to Captain Unova, his breathing labored. "I may have overestimated myself here," he panted. "They're tougher than I thought."

Jonathan cracked his knuckles. "Between the two of us, I think we can take 'em."

"Yeah?" Hawlucha Man took a deep breath and settled into a fighting crouch. "Well, maybe we can." He cast a glance over his shoulder. "Y'know, some of those combos looked familiar. You a Brycen fan?"

Jonathan beamed. "You recognized them?"

"Brycen's my hometown hero! I grew up on his movies, I know _all_ his moves!"

"See the man on the right there?" Jonathan said. "When I give the signal, go for something like Liepard Stalks in Snow. I'll take the guy on the other side with a Servine Creeps Downward. We'll meet in the middle and go for Pride with a Two Arcanine Subdue Druddigon."

"I like the way you think." Hawlucha Man motioned to his partner. "Liepard Stalks in Snow, on his mark."

Jonathan watched as the Sins' forces closed in. "Okay, now!" Hawlucha Man and Hierro took off at a sprint, veering right while Jonathan ducked left. He extended his right hand, and George swooped down with one talon extended. He seized Jonathan's arm and hauled him up into the air, above the chaos on the ground.

Hawlucha Man and his partner closed in on their mark, feinting left, then right, then left again. As the man tried to track their movements, Hawlucha Man leapt at him and delivered an open-handed strike to the man's chin and followed up with a kick to throw the man back into his comrades' arms. Hierro vaulted over his partner's back to strike the man's Magneton, causing it to discharge its electricity into Pride's ranks. Jonathan was now over his target, and he dropped out of the sky and onto the capo's shoulders, tightening his thighs around the man's neck while the man scrabbled uselessly at his legs. Jonathan boxed the man's temples, and he crumpled as the next man in the formation brought his gun to bear. Before he could fire off a shot, Jonathan had disarmed him and bludgeoned him with his gun.

George dropped out of the sky as Pride's Seviper lunged at Jonathan. The Braviary seized the poison type just behind its head, rendering the serpent's fangs useless. Its tail lashed back and forth, but George soared back up into the air, looping and diving to disorient the poison type before going into a final loop and dropping the Seviper at the peak of his arc.

Jonathan and Hawlucha Man raced towards Pride, but a hulking enforcer stood in their way. "Pansage Conquers Heaven!" Hawlucha Man barked. He and Jonathan both dropped their weight before springing up with a double uppercut, striking the man's chin simultaneously and causing his head to snap backwards.

"Dragonair Encircles the Mountain!" Jonathan said, and slid his knee behind the man's leg. Hawlucha Man did the same on the other side, and together they jerked their feet back, sending the man crashing down on his rump. A Scyther sprang at them, only to be grabbed from behind by Hierro and flung back. The Hawlucha whirled in midair and ignited his fists, descending with a powerful punch that surrounded the Scyther in a brief nimbus of flames. "Beartic Catches Cloud!" Jonathan said with a laugh. "With a twist!"

Hawlucha Man grinned. "He watched the movies with me."

Before they could rush at Pride, an Incineroar tackled Hawlucha Man to the ground. "You again!" someone snarled from behind them.

Hierro shrieked in anger and leapt at the fire type pinning his partner. A flying kick to the feline's chest forced it into a retreat, but before Hawlucha Man could get back on his feet, one of Wrath's anarchists knocked Jonathan to his knees.

"Cap!" Alex snapped as he jumped up and disarmed another of Pride's capos. "Aipom Takes Peach!" Jonathan smirked and drove his right fist up into the anarchist's groin, buying Jonathan enough time to get back on his feet.

Hawlucha Man whirled as Wrath emerged from the bombed-out building. "How's that leg doing?" he called.

Wrath snarled, nearly foaming at the mouth. "I'll kill you, you damned pest!" He raised a plastic remote, and as soon as Jonathan saw Wrath's hand move, he whistled. George swooped down and snatched the device from Wrath's grip, depositing in on a gargoyle several stories above street level.

"I have a plan," Hawlucha Man hissed as the Sins closed in. "You remember the end of Attack of the Dragon Clan?"

"Where Brycen and Mikiko did the—"

"Yeah, and then with the—"

"And finished them off with the, you know—"

"Exactly!"

"That might actually work!"

"All right. You go low, I'll go high."

Jonathan dropped low with a sweeping kick while Hawlucha Man vaulted over his back, slamming his batons down on the shoulders of the closest man. Jonathan rose with an uppercut, sending one of Wrath's anarchists crashing to the ground and clutching his jaw. Hawlucha Man twirled with a series of spinning kicks as he tried to break through to Richelieu, so Jonathan turned his attention on Aukai.

"Go for his right leg!" Hawlucha Man called over his shoulder. "Last time we fought, we got him there, and it hasn't had time to heal!"

Jonathan moved in, only for Wrath's Incineroar to jump at him. Hierro dove and grappled the fire type to the ground. Black and crimson flames erupted from the Incineroar's claws, and Hierro struck his talons together like flints to ignite his own claws. Small explosions erupted from their fists as they clashed. Hierro's leaps and agile maneuvers checked the Incineroar's greater size and reach as the Hawlucha bounded into and out of range faster than the fire type could respond. Their fiery fists cast strange shadows as they battled back and forth.

Hawlucha Man let out a cry of dismay as two of Pride's grunts closed on him and knocked him to the street. Richelieu stalked towards him, her Seviper poised to strike. "Got you now, you little pest," the woman hissed as she reached out to take a gun from one of her subordinates.

Jonathan cursed under his breath. "George! It's time!" He turned his back on Wrath's men and thrust his arms out in front of him, his fists closed. George stooped out of a dive, driving his wings down like Jonathan's fists, then swerving in the air as Jonathan whipped his hands into a sloping diagonal line. Finally, he moved his arms to form two parallel lines across his body. Power surged in his veins, and the light from the streetlamps seemed to grow brighter as he took off at a sprint, a wordless battle cry tearing from his throat. He rammed through Pride's remaining enforcers with a full-tilt, full-body tackle, and used the momentum to leap up into a spinning kick that took out both of the grunts holding Hawlucha Man.

Wrath recoiled. "Those moves look like… no! That's not possible!"

Captain Unova seized the gun in Pride's hands and discharged a shot into the pavement before ejecting the magazine. He stood in front of Hawlucha Man and spread his arms akimbo as George dropped out of the sky and grasped him beneath the shoulders and hauled him up into the air. The Braviary turned three times counterclockwise as they ascended, the sounds of gunfire echoing behind them. When they had ascended to the proper height, George let Jonathan go, and he plummeted towards the ground.

Pride's Seviper lunged as he fell, and Captain Unova drove his fist into the serpent's face, knocking it back down just as he landed. The force of his impact splintered the asphalt and knocked Pride's enforcers from their feet, sending several tumbling head over heels.

Pride had been knocked to her knees, and Hawlucha Man had regained his feet and his batons. He pressed one to the back of the woman's head, his hand on the button to activate the electric pulse. The winged hero glanced at Captain Unova as the star spangled fighter stood up and dusted off his costume. "That wasn't a Brycen move."

"No, but I thought it was time to lay my cards on the table." Jonathan took a deep breath and steeled his nerve. The fight wasn't over yet, and he had just enough left in him for one more. "My grandfather was stationed in Alola back in the war. The locals taught him a few tricks, and those secrets have been passed down my family for generations."

Wrath shoved through his men. "You don't _deserve_ those moves!" he spat. "The kahunas denied me my culture, my heritage! So why does a thieving Unovan like you get to use them?!"

Jonathan took another breath. "Hawlucha Man, stand back. I'm going to finish this."

"By yourself?"

"Yes. George!" His Braviary swooped once more, and the streetlights grew in intensity for a third time. Jonathan adjusted his stance and threw a quick series of jabs in front of him, drawing on the last of his power. His muscles tensed and he sprang forward as the Sins' men bore down on him. With a single punch, he lifted one man off his feet and flung him backwards towards the smoking building, and sent another woman airborne with his other hand. He put his weight on his back foot and pivoted, lashing out with a kick that hit one man and sent him flying back into a leaping Mightyena and a Typhlosion, taking all three out of the fight. Two more punches took out a Mienshao and a Drapion, and then the final grunt was in front of Jonathan, a towering brute of a man that was at least six and half feet tall and nearly as wide, all of it wrapped up in corded muscle. He drew his fist back and launched it at Jonathan's face, and Jonathan seemed to watch it in slow motion.

Jonathan settled into his stance and brought his hand back. Time for a finishing move, the kind of thing that got a two-page spread in his kids' comic books. "SKYARROW!" The man's strike came in, but Jonathan was faster, and slammed his fist against the larger man's. " _SMASH_!"

He heard the bones in the brute's hand splinter and crack, and watched as the force of the blow travelled up the man's arm, shattering every bone all the way to the shoulder. The power of Jonathan's punch exploded outwards in a shockwave that launched the man backwards. Wrath ducked under his subordinate's unconscious form and darted forward with a knife. "Those moves aren't yours, Unovan! They belong to _me_!"

Jonathan moved with superhuman speed, twisting around Wrath's strike and grabbing his wrist. "Do you know what makes Unova so great? The thing that makes up the bedrock of the region?" He squeezed, making Aukai gasp in pain. "It's built by people from all over the world who came together and decided to make something more than themselves. Everyone who comes to Unova pours of themselves into it, right into the very foundation. Those Unovans of old decided that culture is better when it's shared, rather than walled off and kept in boxes. Unova is a tapestry that the entire world wove together, in an effort to create something so much better than the sum of its parts." Jonathan felt the power within him waning, and knew he didn't have long. "I came to Clarus City because I saw the same potential here. The tapestry isn't finished yet, and I'll be _damned_ if I let you unravel it!"

He pivoted and threw Aukai forward, forcing the anarchist to land on his injured knee. "Unova is in my blood, but Clarus City is my home!" Jonathan clenched his fist and swung out with a punch. Aukai winced and closed his eyes, waiting for a blow that never came. There was a pop as air rushed into the space Aukai had occupied only a second before. Richelieu vanished in a second pop, followed by Wrath's Incineroar and Pride's downed pokemon. Hawlucha Man whipped around to see what had teleported the Sins away. A Gothorita pirouetted in the center of the carnage once before winking out of existence.

"Dominion," Hawlucha Man hissed as the CCPD rushed in from their defensive perimeter to apprehend the downed Sin enforcers. Jonathan sagged as the last of his power burnt out, and Hierro appeared by his side to help him up. George fluttered down, cooing deep in his throat as he tried to take stock of his trainer.

Jonathan reached out and smoothed his partner's feathers. "I'm okay. Just overdid it a little."

Hawlucha Man helped him to his feet. "I think you're done for the night, Cap. We'll leave the cleanup to the police. Got any place safe you can go?"

"My office. It's only a few blocks away." Jonathan started to rest his weight against Hawlucha Man, only for the younger hero to wince in pain. "Oh, sorry!"

"It's okay. I've had worse."

They limped into an alley, and Jonathan shook his head. "You don't need to do the stiff upper lip thing with me. If you don't take care of yourself, you'll pay the price down the line. I've got a first aid kit in my desk; we'll get you patched up there." Hawlucha Man started to protest, but after a stern glance from Hierro, the younger hero just nodded instead. Jonathan turned to George. "You scout ahead. We're going to slip in through the parking garage. If there's anyone around, I need you to make a distraction." The Braviary bobbed his head in a nod and shot off into the sky.

Hawlucha Man glanced at Hierro. "Watch our backs, buddy."

As they picked their way through the access roads and alleys between the downtown skyscrapers, Jonathan probed his side. He'd have a bit of a bruise in the morning, but nothing he couldn't hide. It looked like Hawlucha Man had taken the heavier blows. He hid it well, but Jonathan could tell he was hurting. While they paused in an alcove as a police patrol screamed by, Jonathan turned to his companion. "You usually cover Avenbrooke, right? Downtown Clarus is a little far from your usual beat. What are you doing in my neck of the woods?"

Hawlucha Man studied Jonathan's face for a moment before replying. "Have you heard from Sasaki recently?"

"Nope. Haven't really run into any other heroes since Nimbus Tower."

"So you're out of the loop, huh? Okay, let's see if I can bring you up to speed. Oh, hang on! Let's go!" They crossed a small square, empty except for a few homeless tramps camped out on benches. When they were in the next back street, Hawlucha Man held up a hand while he probed his ribs. With a hiss of pain, he straightened and motioned for Jonathan to continue on. "I've been doing some work for Jiro lately. Like, legit daytime work for Sasaki Industries. So I'm in midtown during the day.

"I've also managed to establish contact with a highly-placed mole in the Sins' organization, and he's feeding us intel on their operations. I pass that along to Jiro, and he lets the other heroes know so we can put a stop to it. I got word that Pride and Wrath were planning something tonight, so Hierro and I staked it out, figuring it was something we could nip in the bud." His Hawlucha glanced up at him and huffed out a breath. "Yeah, we definitely underestimated what we were up against. This isn't the first time we've gotten in over our heads. If you hadn't shown up, we would have been totally screwed."

"Like I told you, that's what heroes do."

Hawlucha Man smiled. "You're all right, Captain Unova."

"Thanks!"

"A bit of a blowhard, but you're all right."

"Hey!"

When they reached the entrance to the underground parking structure, Jonathan returned George to his pokeball and led Alex into the subterranean complex. Hierro bristled as they descended, but Jonathan only took them one level down, where they took an elevator up the skyscraper to Jonathan's firm. He unlocked the door to the law offices of Avery, Smith, and Wesson and motioned Hawlucha Man through. When they reached his personal office, Jonathan removed his helmet and fetched the first aid kit from the bottom drawer of his desk. Jonathan gestured with his chin to a small coat closet on the opposite wall. "I keep some gym clothes in there. Help yourself to whatever you need." When Hawlucha Man started to protest and say that he needed to go back out on patrol, Jonathan shook his head. "You're at least as exhausted as I am, and in no shape to do any more fighting or acrobatics tonight. Besides, it will be easier to patch you up if you aren't in that onesie. You can't take care of Clarus City if you aren't taking care of your own well-being."

After a moment's hesitation, Hawlucha Man quickly stripped out of his costume and pulled on a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants emblazoned with the crest of Castelia University's law school. Jonathan couldn't help but stare at the mostly-faded patchwork of bruises on Hawlucha Man's torso as he pulled the sweatshirt on. "Doesn't that hurt like hell?" He set a bottle of rubbing alcohol, some cotton swabs, and a hot patch on his desk.

Hawlucha Man shrugged. "You get used to it." He picked up the hot compress and affixed it under his shirt with a hiss. "The suit protects me from the worst damage, but it doesn't stop blunt force trauma. What do you use?"

"Kevlar, mostly."

"Nice. Jiro made the new suit with carbon nanofibers They're damn impressive, but they don't do much to stop impact damage. Still, it's better than the nylon and padding I used to use."

"Just nylon? Seriously?"

"Had to keep the suit lightweight, or I couldn't fly."

Jonathan whistled through his teeth. "You're one crazy bastard." He sank into his leather swivel chair with a groan while Hawlucha Man and his partner sat in the two chairs opposite the desk and started rubbing the cramps out of their muscles. Jonathan reached for the other items in his bottom drawer. He set the bottle of scotch and two glasses on the desk and poured himself a generous measure before glancing at Hawlucha Man. "Don't let the other senior partners know I've got this. It's against company policy."

Hawlucha Man laughed. "I think your secret is safe with me!"

"Care for a drink?"

"Well, you did say I should call it a night. Why not?"

Jonathan poured Hawlucha Man two fingers of scotch and passed a bag of dried fruit across the desk to Hierro. The Hawlucha seized a handful and happily munched away while Jonathan and Hawlucha Man drank in silence for a moment. Finally, Jonathan set his glass back on the desk. "Do we know what the Sins were after?"

"The target was a package of documents. To the best of my source's knowledge, the dossier has information on the tests the government performed on Dominion years ago before the esper program shut down. Wrath's guys were going to take whatever else they could get their hands on to muddy the waters, but I already passed my intel along to the police." Hawlucha Man shrugged. "I don't know why Dominion wants that information, since she's the one who lived through the tests. Our best guess is to keep it out of our hands so we can't use it against her. Honestly, stopping the robbery wasn't my top priority. I knew Pride and Wrath were both going to be out in the open tonight, and I thought this was going to be the best chance to take them down."

"All by yourself? For Arceus's sake, taking on two of the Sins on your own is virtually to suicide!"

"Wouldn't be the first time I've gone toe-to-toe with two of them at once. Besides, I needed to keep my knowledge of the operation quiet. If I tried to contact the other heroes or the police for backup, word could have gotten back to Pride that I knew what they were planning. I thought Hierro and I could handle it."

Jonathan scowled and plucked a business card from a stand on his desk. He flipped it over, scribbled a phone number on the back, and held it out to Hawlucha Man. "Take this. It's got my office line, and I just gave you my personal cell number. If you're ever in a situation like this again, I want you to call me in for backup. With George, I can be anywhere in the city in a flash. We Unovans have to stick together."

"I… thanks." Hawlucha Man glanced down at the business card. The rich cardstock was embossed with thick letters in gilt ink, and read "J. Q. Publick Attorney at Law, Avery, Smith and Wesson, LLP" followed by a phone number and extension. Hawlucha Man glanced up at the law diploma from Castelia University hanging on the wall and then back to Jonathan. "Wait a minute. Your name is John Q. Publick?"

"I've gone by Jonathan since I was a teenager. But technically yes."

"And you've got the whole Unovan stars and stripes thing going on."

Jonathan spread his hands. "Yes, that's pretty self-evident."

"And your name… your literal, actual name, is John Q. Publick."

"Yes…?"

"Arceus, really?" Hawlucha Man scoffed and raised an eyebrow at Jonathan's blank expression. "Wait. You really don't see it?"

"See what?"

"Uh, you know what? Never mind. Forget I said anything."

Jonathan shrugged and stretched in his chair. "I think the excitement from earlier starting to catch up to me. I'm going to head home before I crash at my desk again. Let me call you a car to bring you home."

"Oh, you don't have to do that!"

But Jonathan had already picked up his phone and dialed. "Really, it's no trouble. It's a long road back to Avenbrooke, and at this time of night the subways have stopped running. Not that I'd make you take the train anyway. The firm keeps a car service on retainer for when we work late nights, and they operate twenty four hours a day. We'll just say you're a paralegal who stayed late, and you can go home and get some sleep."

"Thanks, Cap."

Jonathan ordered the car, and was told that it would arrive in just a few minutes. Hawlucha Man gathered up his costume, and Jonathan gave him an opaque shopping bag to keep it in for the ride home. He walked Hawlucha Man down to the building lobby, and they saw the hired car idling outside. Jonathan stuck out his hand. "A pleasure working with you, Hawlucha Man."

"You too, Cap."

"Until next time, then?"

"Count on it. Next time I need to bring the fight to the Sins, I'll let you know." He walked towards the door of the building, but before he stepped outside, he turned back to Jonathan and struck the iconic Brycen pose, back ramrod straight, arms outstretched and with one leg bent at a ninety degree angle.

Jonathan immediately mimicked the pose, and the two heroes shared a laugh before Hawlucha Man and Hierro stepped out into the night, got in the car, and drove away.


	23. Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

Gwen Culain rotated her shoulders back and felt the muscles strain and pop. She let out a low groan of satisfaction as she turned her torso from side to side and massaged her legs. Sitting on a tiny stool in a cramped storage unit all night was boring work, but it paid well. She had enough professional pride not to drink on the job, but workers in any industry were entitled to a cigarette break, so she felt no guilt stepping out into the cool night air to light up. The briny scent of the nearby Ridgewood docks flavored the air, and Gwen heard a sleepy Wingull cry out to its companion in the darkness.

She leaned against the aluminum siding of the storage pod and flicked her lighter, taking a long drag of the acrid smoke and holding it in her lungs for a moment before exhaling. This sort of protection work was about all she could get lately after she had cut her professional ties with the Sins and the Kuromori. She would never be the sort of moral paragon that her parents were, but she figured it was about damn time she found a little integrity and stuck to only hurting the people who deserved it. That said, she didn't delude herself into thinking she was some kind of hero; she didn't work pro bono.

One of Gluttony's stooges had come sniffing around to try and talk her back into a contract, and he didn't seem keen on taking no for an answer. Gwen had quite literally kicked him to the curb with a black eye and a bruised rib, and that had been the end of that.

On the bright side, with the Sins getting bolder, a lot of wealthy assholes were getting nervous about their junk and needed someone who could help them with their peace of mind. Gwen's rates and schedule were flexible enough to make her an attractive option, so enough protection work had been coming her way to keep her bills paid and her whiskey stocked.

Tonight some inventor and entrepreneur had contracted her to stand watch over some of his prototypes. He had explained to Gwen that they were some kind of cutting-edge medical tech that could revolutionize the way pokemon centers worked and increase the efficiency of treatment by an order of magnitude and Gwen had tuned the rest out when it devolved into technobabble mixed with marketing jargon. The contract was simple enough, just stand guard at the storage unit until morning, and a truck would come by to load it up and get it the hell out of Clarus.

Apparently, her employer feared that the Sins would get wind of his prototypes and steal them for their own use, so he was getting them out of the city and to a safe location. The storage unit was just a waypoint to keep them out of the lab they were known to be in. Gwen felt this was a little overly paranoid, since the Sins had shown little to no interest in tech, let alone medical tech, but the guy's money was good, and this sort of job was becoming increasingly common lately. People were afraid that the big mean criminals were going to take their crap, so the people who were rich enough to send it elsewhere were doing so, and the people who weren't were willing to pay Gwen to keep it safe for eight hour increments.

It wasn't glamorous work, but it kept Maximus fed.

And by Arceus, Maximus could _eat_.

She palmed her Aggron's pokeball. She'd have to let the big lug out for his nightly stretch pretty soon, but she wanted to savor a little alone time first. Just until the end of the cigarette…

She had just taken another drag when something clattered in the darkness to her right. Gwen raised her metal baseball bat and peered out, figuring it was probably just a Rattata going through the garbage or a feral ghost type making mischief. But the shape moving in the darkness was much too big for a Rattata, and Gwen knew it was time to earn her keep. She let the last of the cigarette fall from her fingers, and she covered the embers with her boot, making sure to muffle the crunch of gravel underfoot as best she could.

When the shape moved slightly, Gwen raised the bat with her right hand as her left unclipped the flashlight from her belt. She swung around and clicked the light on, hoping that if it was just a pokemon, the sudden flash would spook it and she could go back to her break.

The Shadow froze as the beam of light hit her, and over her shoulder, her Haunter shielded its eyes from the glare. "What the hell are you doing here?" Gwen snapped, and the Shadow put a finger to her lips. Gwen realized that the girl's face was pale with fear, and she was clearly agitated about something. When she opened her mouth to speak again, the Shadow hissed her into silence.

"Be quiet! It's not safe here!"

Gwen grabbed the thief's shoulder and hauled her back into the storage unit. She carefully eased the hanging metal door closed and whirled on the Shadow. "Explain."

The thief sank down onto Gwen's stool as her Haunter phased through the wall. When she had collected herself, she looked up at Gwen. "So I heard the Baron has a cache of stuff in this facility, and I wanted to scope it out."

"Don't you work for the Baron?"

"Yeah, sometimes." Before Gwen could make a sarcastic comment about honor among thieves, the Shadow shook her head. "That's not important! We need to get out of here."

"I'm working a contract. If I don't stay until morning, I don't get paid."

"You can't get paid if you're dead!"

"What?"

"The Sins and the Kuromori are here."

" _What_?!"

The Shadow let out a shaky breath. "Yeah. I didn't stick around to get the details, but I saw them near the center of the facility. The Kuromori are here with Saito, Sukiyama, _and_ Tarou, and I saw Pride, Gluttony… and the new boss. The esper." The Shadow gulped. "And they all both brought big entourages. I've been trying to slip through the perimeter, but it hasn't been easy."

"They must be making some kind of deal." Gwen shook her head. Up until now, the western edge of Clarus City had enjoyed an uneasy truce between the Sins and the Kuromori. The Kuromori had made it clear that they had no intention of being subsumed into the Sins' organization, and after a few early skirmishes, the Sins had been content to leave them alone. A united front between the two enterprises could spell disaster for the civilians of Clarus City. "Take me to them."

"Are you suicidal?" the Shadow cried.

"Someone has to put a stop to this," Gwen replied. "And we're the only two people here."

"You're insane!"

Gwen shrugged. She wasn't doing this out of the goodness of her heart. The cops had posted a _very_ generous reward for information leading to the capture of the Sins' top brass. But to claim the money, the information had to be rock solid. Getting close enough to hear the big boss's plans was certain to get her a cut.

The Shadow continued to protest, but Gwen was adamant. Finally, the thief relented and agreed to lead her back to where the meeting was being held. "But we're just going to look. If it looks like a fight, I'm running."

The Shadow was good. She kept them in the darkness, and well away from the patrols of the crime bosses. As they drew nearer to the center plaza of the storage yard, Gwen saw that someone had rigged up portable floodlights, bathing the courtyard in harsh white light. Shadows danced on the walls of the storage units lining the even byways through the units, and the Shadow hastened Gwen onward. They drew even with a pickup truck parked alongside one of the units, and the Shadow motioned for them to climb up onto it, and then onto the roof of the unit.

They crawled on their bellies along the gently sloping roof, right to the edge of the plaza. Gwen hissed in a breath as she studied the faces laid out below her. The Shadow had been right, Pride, Gluttony, and the esper known as Dominion stood just before them, flanked by their lackeys. A Gothorita swayed from side to side behind the esper. Across the plaza, Saito Kuromori, the patriarch of the ninja clan, stood with his brother Sukiyama and his son Tarou. A Bisharp crouched in front of him, idly flexing the blades on its wrist. The masked form of the Vixen crouched in the shadows some ways off, and Gwen could make out the indistinct shapes of other Kuromori assassins in the alleyways.

"I explained this to your predecessor several times," Saito was saying. "The terms the Sins offer to join our might with theirs are simply not good enough. My clan was exiled from Johto because we dared assert our independence. For generations, we have maintained that same independence and autonomy here in Clarus City, and I am not about to bend my knee to some new tyrant that offers me nothing more than table scraps. Ms. Richelieu, Frau Mueller, surely you've explained this to Miss…. Ah, Miss…"

"Dominion," the esper said, in a high, piping voice. Not exactly what Gwen would have expected from the person who singlehandedly turned the Clarus underworld on its head, but then, who was she to judge? New clients usually thought the Iron Maiden of Clarus would be taller. "Saito, dear, what you don't seem to understand is that I am offering you the same terms Mr. Braun did as a sign of respect. The state of things in Clarus City is _very_ different from the last time the Sins extended you an olive branch." She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and raised one elegantly manicured hand to tap her index finger against her temple. "You see, if the urge struck me, I could order you to get down on your knees, lick my stilettos, and beg to join me. If any of your men tried to stop me, I would tell them to drive their knife into their gut, and they would thank me for the privilege."

"You wouldn't dare!" Tarou snapped.

"Well," Dominion said with a casual wave of her hand. "I wouldn't _like_ to. In a negotiation like this, it seems a little gauche. I was _so_ hoping we could come to an agreement." Gwen could hear the pout Dominion put in her voice, and it made her skin crawl.

"You psychic bitch!" Tarou growled. "I'll rip your—"

"Oh, do shut up." Tarou's mouth snapped shut, and his eyes bulged out as he tried to force his mouth open, but his body rebelled. "Now Suki, darling, why don't you keep your nephew under control while we grownups have a chat." Sukiyama's stoic visage cracked as his right hand moved of its own volition under his suit jacket and drew out a long, slender knife that he laid against Tarou's throat.

"Holy shit," Gwen whispered.

Dominion turned back to Saito. "Do you need a further demonstration? If you'd like, I can have half your men line up in front of you and take their own lives. Or hell, why not all of them?" A dangerous edge crept into her voice. "Yes, why _not_ all of them?" The esper swept forward, spreading her hands in front of her. "Tell you what, Saito. Here are the new terms. Either you join me right now, or I wipe out the Kuromori tonight in one fell swoop. I'll make the whole clan commit _seppuku_ right in front of you, and then once every single one of your assassins are lying dead your feet, I'll make you take your own life." She laid a hand on Saito's cheek. "How does that sound?"

"You're a monster," Saito hissed. He glanced over Dominion's shoulder at Pride. "Julia. We've had our differences in the past, but you must know that I've always respected you." He locked eyes with Dominion. "So I can't fathom why you would cast your lot with an _abomination_ like this."

Pride's right hand twitched at her side, but she stiffened and continued staring straight ahead. Dominion's shoulders trembled with barely suppressed laughter, and she patted Saito's face again. "So you want to do this the hard way, Saito?"

Gwen shifted her weight, and her metal bat clanged against the aluminum roof of the storage pod. The Shadow whipped her head around to the mercenary, her eyes wide with incredulity. Gwen sucked in a breath. "Fuck." Two of the Sins' grunts turned the floodlights towards the source of the sound, and Gwen had to squint against the sudden light. "Fuck," she groaned again, louder this time. Then she jumped to her feet and whipped her bat around. She leapt from the rooftop and plunged towards the plaza, her left hand hurling Maximus's pokeball. "Come on out, big guy!"

The first salvo of bullets pinged harmlessly against the Aggron's armored hide, and the steel type threw back his crested head and roared. His tail lashed back and forth, throwing Sin enforcers and Kuromori assassins through the air, and Gwen swung herself up onto her partner's shoulder. "Give 'em hell, Maximus!"

The Shadow's Haunter strafed the ground with a salvo of spectral fire as the Shadow jumped after Gwen, landing on Maximus's other side and swinging up to his other shoulder. "What happened to running away?" Gwen asked.

"I was screwed one way or the other. I figured I might as well go down swinging."

A few enterprising Kuromori tried to use the confusion to attack Dominion. They leapt at her, knives drawn, only to be shoved aside by an invisible force with a contemptuous flick of the esper's wrist. They drove their own knives into their chests and collapsed on the ground. Their pokemon cried out as their human partners fell, only to be laid low by a crackling field of purple energy generated by the esper's Gothorita.

Saito's Bisharp was joined by Sukiyama's Crobat and Tarou's Machamp as it grappled with Pride's Pyroar and Gluttony's Hippowdon and Honchkrow. Gluttony barked orders to her men to focus on the Kuromori, only to throw herself to the ground as Maximus lifted her Hippowdon and hurled it through the air. The ground type crashed against the side of a storage pod, making half of the structure collapse.

Gwen jumped off Maximus's back and shoved her way through the crowd. She'd seen the kind of money the police were willing to front for information on Dominion. But if she knocked the esper out and dragged her to a police station, that kind of payday would probably set her up for life. "Culain!" Tarou snarled as reached out to snatch her elbow.

"Hey Tarou," Gwen said. She ducked as Maximus's tail whipped by overhead, catching the heir of the Kuromori clan in the chest and hurling him away. "Bye Tarou!"

The Vixen moved through the press, Sin enforcers dropping with each stroke of her flashing knives. Her Ninetales crouched at her heels, fire pooling in its jaws as they raced towards Pride. The Shadow and her Haunter clung to Maximus's hulking form as the steel type cleared a space in the center of the melee. Gwen counted herself lucky that the Sins and Kuromori were content to kill each other, because if they had turned on her, no amount of combat training would save her from a very painful death.

"Stop!" Dominion screamed. The chaos suddenly halted as every combatant froze in place. All around Gwen, Sin enforcers and Kuromori assassins stood locked in place, their muscles straining as their eyes darted from side to side. Their pokemon snarled low in their throats, incapable of opening their mouths. Gwen shook her head and took a step back.

And then realized that she had taken a step back.

She could move.

She could feel a grin spreading across her face as she stalked through the crowd of motionless bodies. Gwen could see the frozen fighters' eyes flicking towards her as she broke into a run, dodging and weaving through a forest of petrified forms. Her footsteps echoed in the sudden silence, and Dominion looked up as Gwen charged her. "What? I told you to _stop_!"

"Here's the thing, bitch," Gwen growled. "I don't take orders from anyone unless I'm getting paid."

"Stop!" Dominion shrieked. "Freeze! _Stop it_!"

But Gwen kept coming. She drew her right fist back. "Shut…" She lashed out with a punch that struck across Dominion's cheek. "The _fuck_ …" She followed up her first punch with a left-handed uppercut to the esper's abdomen, making the woman double over. " _UP_!" And then Gwen delivered a killer right hook that sent Dominion staggering backward.

As she backpedaled, she placed her weight onto the heel of one of her stilettos, and the shoe snapped, sending her tumbling to the ground. The abrupt bump, coupled with the shock of Gwen's trifecta of punches, was enough to break Dominion's hold over the combatants and the lot erupted back into motion.

Dominion's Gothorita was instantly at the esper's side, and the two of them vanished with a crack and a flash of purple light. Warring cries to "Fall back!" and "Press on!" came from both Sin and Kuromori forces, only serving to add to the confusion. Richelieu and Mueller both shouted commands that drowned out by their enforcers and capos, while Saito Kuromori bellowed for order.

Gwen figured it was probably time to bow out.

She sprinted back towards Maximus and jumped up onto his back. "All right, big guy. Let's get out of here."

The Shadow glanced over. "What's the plan?"

Gwen pointed. "Maximus is going to go that way."

"That's it? _That's_ your plan?"

"You ever try to stop charging Aggron?"

Maximus lowered his horned skull and began to plod forward. While he was by no means fast, the steel type slowly built momentum. The warring criminals were too busy with their own fighting to pay much mind to Maximus, except to get out of the way as he barreled by. Just after they cleared the conflict, the Aggron managed to build up enough speed to charge clear through a storage pod, and then another, and then another. The scraps of broken furniture and crushed luggage littered the ground behind them.

The Shadow glanced back and shrugged. "As far as escape plans go… this isn't bad."

Gwen smirked. "I figure they would be too busy trying to kill each other that they would leave us alone long enough to get clear."

"I'm surprised they did, considering you just punched out the top crime lord in Clarus City."

"Right? The Kuromori better send me flowers."

"You aren't worried that the Sins are going to come after you?"

"I'll admit, the thought crossed my mind. I'll figure out how to deal with that later." Gwen patted Maximus's steel plating. "This won't be the first tough situation the big guy and I have gotten out of."

The Shadow winced as Maximus tore through another storage pod. "When Dominion froze us, I thought we were goners. How did you break free?"

"It just didn't work on me."

"Like, at all?"

"Nope."

"How?"

Gwen shrugged. "Hell if I know. Probably I'm just too much of a stubborn asshole."

The Shadow fell silent as Maximus continued to lumber forward. Gunshots could be heard ringing in the air behind them. Finally, the thief spoke again. "This is going to be really bad, isn't it?"

"Probably."

"Like, for everyone. If the Sins and the Kuromori go to war, Clarus City is going to get torn apart."

Gwen pursed her lips. "Yeah, maybe. But I figure if they're all too busy killing each other, they aren't going to think to come after me." She saw the Shadow glaring at her. "What? Can you blame me if I'm more concerned with saving my own skin?"

"We have to tell someone about this. Warn them, so that they know it's coming."

Gwen scoffed. "A gang war like this is going to be pretty hard to miss."

"But it won't happen right away! If we go to the heroes, they'll have time to prepare! They can mobilize the police, prevent collateral damage—"

"The _heroes_? Aren't you a crook?"

"I need to get to Hawlucha Man. I trust him… after a fashion. We have an understanding. An arrangement."

"An arrangement, huh?" Gwen raised an eyebrow.

"I need to get to Avenbrooke."

"Well, good luck with that."

"Take me there."

Gwen whirled on the thief. "Why the hell should I? I don't owe you or this city anything."

The Shadow glared back at her. "I'll pay you. Your standard rate to get me across town to Hawlucha Man's door."

"You know where he lives, huh? Is that part of that special 'arrangement' you got?"

"Yeah, well, I mean… listen. This will be a hell of a lot faster if we take your motorcycle than if I try to get a cab."

"This is going to be a damn expensive cap ride."

"I'm paying for your protection too. Get me across town and make sure no Sin capo or Kuromori assassin kills us en route, and I'll pay."

Gwen muttered a curse under her breath. "Fine. You got a deal." They had arrived at the pod of Gwen's employer, and the Shadow dismounted from Maximus's shoulder. "Hang on a sec," Gwen said. She stood on her tiptoes and from her vantage point could just make out the first rays of dawn striking the top of the tallest skyscrapers in midtown. "Perfect. Let me just close out this job real quick."

"The Sins could be on us any second!"

"I can't leave the lot until this job is done." Gwen pulled out her phone and dialed her employer's number. After three rings, a sleepy voice on the other end picked up. "Hey bossman," Gwen said in the brightest voice she could muster given the circumstances. "Your stuff is safe and ready to move out, as promised."

"What?" her employer slurred. "What time is it?"

"It's morning, boss. I'm looking at the sunrise right now." Gwen opened the camera on her phone, snapped a picture of the inside of the storage pod, and sent it to her employer. "That means my contract's done."

"I thought you were going to wait until the truck showed up to—"

"My contract just says until morning." When her employer started to protest, Gwen clicked her tongue. She could see the Shadow growing agitated. "Look, I made sure your product was safe through the night, and fulfilled my contract. I upheld my end of the bargain. I have other places I need to be, so now it's time you upheld yours."

The man on the other end of the phone grumbled, but a moment later Gwen's phone chimed, notifying her that the second half of her payment had been wired to her account. "Thanks for choosing Aegis Security!" Gwen said, and hung up. She turned to the Shadow. "Well, that's one client who probably won't be using my services again."

"There won't be any clients using your services if we don't get the hell out of here."

"Fair point." Gwen picked up a helmet from the back of her motorcycle and tossed it underhand to the Shadow. "Put that on. You're an Aegis client now, so I have to do everything within reason to keep you safe. In the interest of saving time, I won't even ask for half up front." She returned Maximus, straddled her bike and waited until the Shadow had wrapped her arms around her waist. Gwen donned a pair of sunglasses, revved the engine, and grinned. "All right, let's roll."

They shot down the uniform rows of the storage yard, the sounds of distant fighting echoed over the roar of Gwen's motorcycle. Gwen cursed under her breath as a Rhydon barreled out in front of them, and she had to swerve to avoid the beast's lashing tail. The rock type bellowed as they barreled past, and its trainer fired off a few shots at their retreating back, but the bullets went wide.

Gwen swung into a wide turn as they passed the storage yard gates, and then poured on speed for the long straight-away that would take them to the expressway. The mercenary glanced into her rearview mirror and saw that several other cars were peeling out of the storage yard, and she pushed her bike as fast as it could go to outstrip them. "Hey Shadow!" she called over the roar of the engine. "I should have mentioned this up front, but if I wind up with any speeding fines for this, that's going on your bill!"

"Shut up and drive!"

They passed under the expressway overpass and swung into a tight turn to get on the entrance ramp. This early in the morning, Gwen was pretty sure that traffic going into the city wouldn't be that heavy. On the one hand, that meant she and the Shadow wouldn't be held up on their way to Avenbrooke, but on the other, it meant that any pursuers would have an easy time tailing them. Gwen gritted her teeth. It was only a few miles from one end of the city to the other, which didn't leave her much time to lose a tail and disappear, not at the speeds she was going to need to maintain.

Several large trucks were cruising down the highway as she merged, likely hoping to pass through the city early or drop off their wares before the streets got too congested. A few commuters were on the road as well, and Gwen weaved through them before angling towards the Crown Bridge. The black sedans from the storage yard shot onto the highway behind her, and Gwen swung in front of an eighteen wheeler hoping that the truck's bulk would hide her. The driver sounded his horn in irritation, and Gwen cursed under her breath again.

The highway added a lane as they approached the bridge, but Gwen stayed in the middle. Better for maneuvering, in case she needed to avoid a pursuit. The sedans were gaining, and she guided her bike between two trucks to cover her flanks. Too late, Gwen realized she had boxed herself in, and before she could fix her error, one of the sedans drove up behind her, cutting off the option of falling back. The roar of an engine to her right presaged the appearance to a van in the lane in front of her.

The back doors flew open, revealing a bruised and battered Sukiyama and Tarou Kuromori. "Culain!" Sukiyama shouted. "What the hell happened back there? Who are you working for?"

"I'm not!" Gwen shouted back. "I don't want anything to do with this!"

"It's the Baron, isn't it?" Tarou roared. "Or Petrovna, working against her boss?"

"No!" Gwen ground her teeth together in frustration. "I'm not involved, I'm not on anyone's payroll! I just saved all of your asses! Shouldn't you be thanking me?"

Sukiyama scowled. "We need to know how many other players are on the board, Gwendolyn."

"I'm _not_ on the board! By Arceus, I'm trying to take myself _off_ the board!"

"I can't just take you at your word," Sukiyama replied. "I'm going to have to take you in."

"The hell you are," the Shadow snarled. "Alecto!" There was a flash of light as a pokeball burst open, and Gwen felt a rush of cold, heavy air as a purple shape shot by her head. The thief's Haunter slashed at Sukiyama with claws covered in some sort of inky black chitin. When Tarou reached for his gun, the ghost type whirled on him and seemed to double in size as it summoned orbs of spectral blue-green fire. In Tarou's haste to avoid the attack, he nearly fell out of the van. Alecto plunged deeper into the vehicle, and Gwen heard someone scream.

Presumably it was the driver, because the van suddenly veered across two lanes of traffic and smashed into the barrier in the center of the bridge.

The brakes of the truck on Gwen's left screamed as it tried to stop before causing a further pile-up, and Gwen was forced to shoot out in front of the truck on her right as more cars veered and swerved behind and around her. The motorcycle darted through the traffic, putting distance between the two women and the remains of their Kuromori pursuers. An indigo blur swept towards them from the left, sweeping out with one purple claw to seize the Shadow's shoulder and pull itself closer.

Alecto clung to her trainer as they shot across the Crown Bridge, the sweeping lines of its suspension cables rising all around them. "That's one way to lose a tail," Gwen muttered.

"A little more conspicuous than I prefer," the Shadow said. "But it worked, didn't it?" When Gwen grunted in response, the Shadow tightened her grip around the mercenary's waist. "So who's protecting who here again? Does this mean I get a discount?"

"Don't push it."

They reached the other end of the Crown Bridge and put the West River behind them as Gwen took the exit for the subterranean tunnel that spanned the length of midtown Clarus. The fluorescent lights that lined the ceiling of the tunnel flashed by overhead as Gwen continued to weave through the other cars, flagrantly violating at least seven traffic laws. They burst back out into the early morning sunlight and started the climb up the Concord Bridge. A commuter train rattled along an elevated track that ran along the bridge's lower level, and Gwen gunned the engine again in a juvenile impulse to race the train across the bridge's span.

When they had crossed over into Avenbrooke, Gwen was forced to stop at a traffic light. She glanced over her shoulder. "All right, you said you know where we're going."

"Straight for seven blocks, then take a right."

The Shadow was good on her word, guiding Gwen through the chaotic tangle of Avenbrooke streets. Gwen was pretty sure the thief had them cross and re-cross their route a few times, probably to throw off any tail they might have had, but they finally stopped in front of an unassuming tenement building.

The Shadow led Gwen up the front steps, and Gwen studied the door. Solid wood, but the hinges looked old. She figured that a couple well-placed kicks could probably get it off, but that might alert the other tenants and raise uncomfortable questions. Gwen glanced at the Shadow. "So how are we doing this? Are you going to pick the lock, or do you need me to break it down? That costs extra, so—"

The Shadow shot her a look and pressed one of the buttons by a speaker. "Who is it?" a voice heavily distorted by static asked.

"Open up, birdbrain. It's me."

A second later, the door buzzed and unlocked. The Shadow stalked up the stairs, but Gwen caught her arm. "Are you sure about this? He's got no reason to believe us. What if he thinks this is all a ploy by, like, the Baron or whoever? Seems like you've worked with him a lot more than I have, but I've seen enough to know he's no fool."

The Shadow shook her head. "He's not like that. He'll believe me. He knows I've got no reason to lie about something like this." She shrugged. "Besides, he may be clever, but his mind doesn't work that way. Hawlucha Man doesn't have the mindset for scheming, and he assumes that everyone else is a straight shooter like him." The thief pursed her lips. "But he is starting to learn my tells when I'm not being completely above-board…"

Gwen managed to bite back a snarky comment as they reached the third floor landing, and the Shadow tapped on one of the doors. It opened a crack, revealing a young man with tousled hair, bleary eyes, and a t-shirt that was only half-pulled on. "Hey Bri," he mumbled. "What's the matter?"

"Bri?" Gwen asked, cocking an eyebrow. "So this 'special arrangement' has you two on a first name basis, huh?"

The guy, Hawlucha Man presumably, blinked and seemed to notice the mercenary for the first time. "Culain? What the—?"

The Shadow pushed past him into the apartment. "It's a long story."

Hawlucha Man stepped to the side and waved Gwen inside too. He ambled into the kitchen and poked a button on a coffee maker. "Hierro and I only got in about an hour and a half ago," he said with a yawn. "I was hoping to catch a little sleep before work but… whatever." His Hawlucha perched on the back of an armchair, eyeing the two women warily. Hawlucha Man gestured to his partner. "Oh, settle down. You two want coffee?"

"Yeah. Coffee sounds perfect," the Shadow said, gliding over to the tiny kitchenette and opening one of the cabinets over the sink to draw out three mismatched mugs.

"You know where he keeps his _cups_?" Gwen asked, stifling a laugh. "And you're seriously trying to tell me you two aren't—"

"We're _not_ ," the Shadow said emphatically.

"So what did you drag me out of bed for?" Hawlucha Man asked, clearly eager to change the subject.

"It's bad, birdbrain," the Shadow said. "Like _super_ bad." She and Gwen told him what they had seen at the storage yard, and that the uneasy truce that the Kuromori and the Sins had honored for five years was finished. When they explained how they had gotten involved in the fight, Gwen pointedly left out the part where she had been immune to Dominion's power, and the Shadow hadn't pressed the issue. No sense in letting the heroes know _everything_.

At some point in the telling, a Skitty wandered in from the tiny apartment's other room, and Gwen reached down to scratch the feline under its chin. The Skitty seemed perfectly comfortable climbing into Gwen's arms and, even though she was a heartless mercenary, she wasn't about to just dump it on the floor.

Hawlucha Man sipped idly at his coffee. "So you're saying that on top of everything else, we have an all-out gang war to deal with? And both the Sins and the Kuromori might be gunning for you two specifically?"

"If they aren't too busy trying to wipe each other out, yeah," Gwen said.

"The police will need to be put on high alert. The Kuromori don't have the manpower to take out the Sins, but if the Sins manage to thin their ranks enough, then Dominion would have uncontested control over the underworld in every borough but Avenbrooke," Hawlucha Man muttered, more to himself than anything. "I don't know if Jiro has a contingency plan for this. A lot of innocent people are going to be caught in the crossfire if this gets out of control." He continued mumbling, with occasional glances towards his Hawlucha. Gwen only caught a few snatches, but she heard him say, "The informant never mentioned anything like this."

"Informant?"

Hawlucha Man shook his head. "I'm in contact with a mole in the Sins' ranks. I can't really say more." He poured himself another cup of coffee. "But I can ask them to pass along anything they hear about you. If the Sins do go after you, I can try to give you a little bit of an advance warning."

"Thanks." Gwen was surprised to find that she meant it. Hawlucha Man didn't owe her anything, but she supposed that was the difference between heroes and people like her.

"You should both go to ground for a while. I'll talk to Jiro to see what I can arrange for protection."

"I'm a big girl," Gwen said. "I can look after myself." She turned to the Shadow. "Are we done here?"

"Yeah." The thief had been sitting on the countertop, but she now dropped back to the floor. "Let's go."

Gwen left the tiny apartment first, but as she deposited the Skitty on the shabby armchair, she saw Hawlucha Man catch the Shadow's wrist as the thief walked past. "Stay safe. Don't take any stupid risks," he said.

"I'm not an idiot, birdbrain. I'll be careful."

The two women left the tenement building. When they reached the street, the Shadow folded her arms. "All right, how much do I owe you? Knowing your rates, I'm going to be forking over a fortune…"

"You got twenty bucks?"

"Twenty bucks?"

"Yeah."

The Shadow dug into a pocket and pulled out a crumpled bill. Gwen snatched it and stuffed it into her wallet. "Pleasure doing business with you."

"That's _it_?"

"Yeah. I gave you a discount." She glanced at the Shadow over the top of her sunglasses. "Unless you _want_ to pay the full price?"

"Uh… nope."

"Thought so." Gwen swung onto her bike and raised the kickstand. "You two are totally a thing."

"We are _not_!"

But Gwen just laughed as she drove away, leaving the Shadow fuming on the sidewalk behind her.


	24. Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

The armored officer in riot gear grabbed Alex's shoulder and hauled him behind his ballistic shield as bullets started pinging against the reinforced material. "Thanks for the save," Alex panted. The officer gave him a nod and a terse grunt. When the rain of bullets stopped as the Sin enforcers hurried to reload, the officer lowered his shield and stepped to the side to allow his Magmortar to advance. The fire type raised its arms and blasted several pulses of molten material into the enemy ranks, scattering them and providing the officers of the Eleventh much-needed breathing room.

Alex glanced over his shoulder and whistled to Jade, the Duosion that was using her psychic power to keep him airborne. Jade lacked the telekinetic muscle of the Bronzong and two Alakazam that responding officers from the Eleventh had brought to the firefight, and so while the more powerful psychic types labored to hold up the tenement buildings damaged in the fighting while the occupants fled, Jade had been charged with erecting psychic barriers to defend the police. When Officer D'Souza, Jade's human partner, had been injured by a stray bullet and ordered to fall back, Sergeant Matsuri had instructed the Duosion to add "throwing Hawlucha Man in the air" to her list of responsibilities.

Jade might not have been able to hold up buildings, but Alex had to admit that she had quite the arm. Well, in a manner of speaking.

He experienced a sudden lurch as psychic energy wrapped around his torso and hurled him upwards towards the clouds of avian and ghost pokemon locked in combat over the street. Alex spread his arms and let his wingsuit catch the wind as Hierro plummeted out of the sky and struck a snarling Golbat. A building near the police line groaned and started to sag, but one of the Alakazam caught it with a psychic hold as two officers raced inside, shouting for the residents to get out and seek safety.

Alex signaled to Hierro, and together they dropped down into a melee of Sin and Kuromori fighters. Fire crackled around Hierro's fists as the Hawlucha leaped and struck at every combatant in range. Alex's stun batons hummed as he cranked them up to the highest setting. Normally, he would show a little restraint in a chaotic mess like this and make sure no one was trampled in the fighting but… to hell with it. Everyone he was up against was a criminal of the highest order that was actively endangering civilians and the police. If they wound up with a few broken bones or a concussion, he wasn't about to lose any sleep over it.

Brawls between the Sins and the Kuromori had become increasingly common over the last two weeks, with at least two or three erupting across the city every night as the rival factions went to war. But this was the largest Alex had yet seen, and neither side seemed terribly concerned with collateral damage.

Alex gritted his teeth and channeled his rage into each strike. These criminals had brought the fight to Avenbrooke, and he wasn't about to let them run roughshod through his town. He tossed one of his batons to Hierro, and the Hawlucha deftly snatched it out of the air, turning the motion into a backhanded strike against a Poliwrath. Alex's empty right hand curled into a fist, and he slammed it into the face of an oncoming enforcer, feeling a satisfying crunch as the man's nose broke under the blow. Hierro vaulted off a Graveler and jumped over Alex's head, dropping the baton back down as he did so. Alex grabbed it as Hierro slammed down on a Toxicroak and somersaulted into a Kuromori assassin. A Machoke lumbered through the press and reached out to grab Alex in a chokehold, but Alex ducked under its grasping hands and jabbed both of his batons into the fighting type's abdomen. He felt as much as saw the Machoke's body seize up as electricity coursed through its body, and then he heard Hierro's claws skittering on the asphalt before the Hawlucha leapt and drove a fiery fist into the center of the Machoke's chest, sending it staggering backwards before it collapsed and pinned two Kuromori under its bulk.

Alex and Hierro whirled to face the next wave of assailants, but before they could engage, they were momentarily blinded by a brilliant surge of light. Alex felt Hierro stiffen next to him, and they instinctively took up positions guarding each other's back. A howl of wind tore through the air, and when Alex finally blinked the spots from his eyes, he saw Detective Reyes and Sergeant Matsuri standing before a crowd of prone Sin enforcers. Matsuri's Raichu stood before her, the electrical sacs on the pokemon's cheeks still crackling with stored power. Bella, Reyes's Noctowl, beat the air with silent wings, her eyes glowing a brilliant red.

Matsuri trained her gun on the fallen enforcers and their pokemon to ensure they were truly down. "Well done, Kimiko," she said to her Raichu before looking up to smirk at Alex. "You were doing okay, but we figured our way was faster."

"Always grateful for an assist," Alex said, falling into line with the officers from the Eleventh. Reyes's gun cracked, and a Kuromori dropped to the ground, clutching their side. The ninja's Weavile turned towards them with a hiss, but Kimiko dropped the pokemon with a quick burst of lightning.

"Dispatch says the Kuromori have reinforcements coming in down St. Laurent Street, and the Sins have backup en route from Twenty-Sixth and Main," Matsuri said. "They broke through our cordon, so it looks like this party is about to get more fun."

"We have very different definitions of fun," Reyes grumbled.

"How are the civilians?" Alex asked as he checked Hierro for wounds. The Hawlucha seemed fine, but they had both taken a bad beating three nights ago. Alex was still feeling it, and even if his partner was putting on a brave face, he was sure Hierro was too.

"Not in the clear yet. Mags and Annabelle are holding up the last few buildings we need to evacuate," Matsuri said, referring to one of the Alakazam and the Bronzong. "But it's taking longer than we'd hoped. Lieutenant Garamond has Simon doing as controlled a demolition as we can on the empty ones." The sergeant pursed her lips to fight down a stream of curses before finally giving in. "Those fucking bastards are gonna pay for this," she hissed through clenched teeth.

The sharp report of gunfire echoed up and down the street as the rank and file of the Eleventh precinct advanced on the warring Kuromori and Sins. Matsuri signaled Reyes and Alex to advance, and they engaged another group of Sin grunts with Kimiko while Hierro and Bella headed off a flanking maneuver by three Kuromori. Alex lashed out with a roundhouse kick that sent a Sin enforcer stumbling into Reyes's waiting fist. A pair of brass knuckledusters that the detective wasn't technically supposed to have glinted on the detective's hand as he smashed his fist through the gangster's teeth. If Matsuri gave a damn about Reyes ignoring regulations, she didn't show it. With the city's underworld at war, the only thing that mattered was keeping the innocent people of Clarus City out of the crossfire.

A pack of Bisharp was closing on Alex's left flank, but before he could respond, a curtain of black and crimson flames separated him from the advancing pokemon. A Houndoom bounded through the blaze, more fire crackling around its jaws. Two of the Bisharp pounced, only for the Houndoom to turn its full fury on them. The canine snarled out a challenge and whipped the hellfire it had conjured into a spiral as it charged through the massed steel type towards their human partners.

The Kuromori behind the Bisharp drew their poisoned knives in preparation to attack, but before they could strike the Houndoom, four shots rang out, stopping the Kuromori cold. Captain Anderson stood down the street, his brown overcoat open to reveal a flak vest strapped to his chest. "Give 'em hell, Oscar!" the captain bellowed over the din of the melee. The Houndoom howled and set upon his foes with a vengeance.

Anderson ran up the street to join Alex and Matsuri. "The Sins have a Steelix incoming," he growled as he slammed a new magazine into his pistol.

"Where the _fuck_ did they get a Steelix?" Matsuri snapped.

"Hell if I know. But taking it down has got to be our priority."

Alex nodded. The buildings on this street were already in bad shape, but if something the size of a Steelix were to engage here, it could level the entire block. "That riot guy with a Magmortar. Think he could put it down?"

"Jefferson and his Magmortar went down to a Rhyperior ten minutes ago."

Alex cursed under his breath. "I'll have Hierro distract it."

"Son, that's not—"

"Captain. My partner and I will keep it occupied until the Eleventh can figure out a way to put it down." He flashed Anderson a smile he hoped looked genuine. "Don't worry. We got this." He fell back a few paces and signaled to Hierro. "Jade! Get us airborne!"

The Duosion's eyes flashed, and Alex was hurled upwards. He and Hierro soared over to a nearby rooftop, where Alex could just make out the armored head of a Steelix making its ponderous way down Twenty-Sixth Street. Hierro looked expectantly at Alex. "Okay," Alex said as he paused to catch his breath. "So I don't really have a plan, as such…" Hierro made a low, rasping noise in his throat, the sort of thing that passed for an exasperated sigh from the Hawlucha. He struck his talons together like flints, and small flames blossomed around his claws. "Glad we're on the same page," Alex said. "The plan, more or less, is to improvise until something works, and then keep doing that."

Hierro rolled his eyes and launched himself into the air, and Alex was only a heartbeat behind him. The Steelix rounded the corner, flanked by a crowd of Sin enforcers that urged the beast on. As Alex shot past the Steelix's left flank in a dive, he saw that the serpent's beady eyes were crazed and agitated. Its tail lashed back and forth, scoring deep rents in the brick row houses that lined the street.

Hierro descended on the creature's broad head with a fiery strike. The Steelix groaned as Hierro delivered a flurry of blows between the Steelix's eyes, but the heavy metal plating that covered the steel type absorbed most of the force. Alex made a hasty landing on the street and jabbed his baton at full strength into a clump of the iron ore that made up the Steelix's body and the giant snake didn't so much as flinch.

The enforcers and capos turned towards Alex, and he braced himself for a fight. "Hierro!" he shouted. "Slow that thing down!" A Scyther lunged at him, and Alex ducked under its blades to drive his left baton into the center of the insect's thorax. When the Scyther seized up, Alex kicked it backwards into a leaping Ratticate and dropped a capo with three punches, likely breaking the man's nose in the process.

It seemed to Alex that the Sins didn't have the Steelix fully under control, and that they needed all of these enforcers and their pokemon to shepherd it forward to where they needed it. If he could disable enough of the enforcers, the Steelix might disengage. Granted, a rampaging, out of control Steelix posed its own set of problems, but the Pokemon Protective Service would be equipped to handle that.

Hierro screamed as he looped around for another strike, this time slamming into the Steelix from the right flank and making the fire from his punch explode in a supercharged burst the instant before impact. A brilliant explosion flashed, making the Steelix recoil. Alex saw Hierro tumble head-over-tail feathers through the air before righting himself and racing in for another pass, heedless of his smoking feathers.

In the moment of distraction, Alex felt someone strike him across the chest with a blunt club, knocking the wind from his lungs. A Golett was before him, its fist poised to strike as three Sin capos closed in. Even if Alex could have called out to Hierro, there was no way his partner could have come to his aid in time. Alex struggled to his feet and took a deep breath. "All right, bastards. You may have me, but I'm not going down easy."

The first capo moved forward, a knife flashing in his hand. Alex prepared to defend, but before the man could close the distance, there was a sharp crack, a spray of blood, and the man dropped. Two more cracks followed, and the other capos fell in the same fashion. A Granbull barreled through the crowd and lifted the Golett off its feet before slamming it down on the pavement, cracking the rocky carapace that surrounded the automaton.

"Never thought I'd see the day," a hulking giant of a man boomed. "When the boss told me to go help out Hawlucha Man and the Eleventh, I thought he'd gone crazy." Bruce Giordano reloaded a double-barreled shotgun and raised the weapon again. Alex froze as the gun went off again, and a man three feet to Alex's right had his head blown off. "But these bastards are fighting in Avenbrooke, and they seem to forget that the Baron _always_ protects what's his." Giordano's Blastoise trundled up beside him and settled into a crouch. With a roar, it shot two blasts of highly pressurized water from the cannons on its back. The geysers struck the Steelix hard enough to fling the serpent's ponderously heavy head back. The metal carapace that covered its face had already been heated by Hierro's fiery barrages, and now erupted into a cloud of hot steam.

More of the Baron's men spilled out of alleyways and side streets, armed with guns, clubs, bats and knives. Alex realized that these weren't Pirozzi's rank-and-file, usually pulled from the legions of dockworkers and physical laborers in Avenbrooke's poorer quarters, the sort of men who would do anything for a little extra cash. No, the men Giordano had brought were the best cutters in Avenbrooke, trained professional killers. Alex had tangled with some of them personally, and had been hard pressed to get out intact.

"Show them what happens when they mess with our town!" Giordano bellowed. "Get 'em!" The Baron's men roared in response and surged down the street to where the Eleventh was struggling to hold the line against the warring Sins and Kuromori.

The Baron's forces crashed into the struggling factions from behind, turning the three way melee into an all-out brawl. The gangsters screamed and pokemon shrieked and roared as the fighting intensified, punctuated by the hollow crack of gunfire. Alex could only watch as the street descended into absolute chaos. Hierro shot out of the sky and tackled Alex backwards as the Steelix shifted its heavy coils, bringing part of them down just where Alex had been standing. Giordano picked off two more Sin enforcers before signaling to the alley behind him. "All right, Espalier. Go earn your keep."

A slight figure with a wan face stumbled out from the shadows, his weight supported by a concerned-looking Mr. Mime. His black-and-white motley clothes hung loosely on his skeletal frame, and he was so pale that his veins stood out like black webs on his ghostly pale skin. "Pierre," Alex gasped. The mime briefly met Alex's eye and managed a sad smile. The esper raised his hands in front of him, palms out, and Alex saw the air behind the Steelix ripple and shimmer, a sure sign that Pierre had just erected a psychic barrier behind the steel type.

"What are you doing?" Alex shouted to Giordano. "We want to keep it back, not cut it off!"

"I'm keeping it right where I want it," Giordano growled. "We can't let it rampage through Avenbrooke, so I'm taking it down right here! Genbu!" His Blastoise grunted and shifted its weight, lowering its bulk and angling its cannons. Giordano nodded and patted his partner's shell. "Give it everything you got!"

Genbu unleashed two torrents of water from its cannons with enough force to drive the heavy amphibian back several paces. And yet Genbu corrected for the recoil instantly, keeping up the steady stream of pressurized water and forcing the Steelix to retreat all the way to Pierre's wall. Giordano snapped his fingers a Hierro. "You, bird! We'll need you to finish it off!"

Hierro spared a quick glance at Alex, and his human partner nodded. Hierro took off at a sprint before flinging himself into the air. He swooped around Genbu's water jets, spiraling and building up speed. He shot past the Steelix's head, gaining altitude before diving back down at high speed, fire trailing from his claws like a comet. Hierro struck the center of the Steelix's skull plate just between Genbu's torrents, throwing up another cloud of steam. The Steelix's armor shrieked as it warped from the icy cold water and the blisteringly hot flames, and the last of Genbu's water became another cloud of steam. Alex saw Hierro shoot up over the steam, turn in a quick somersault, and plummet down again, feet first this time.

When Hierro's kick landed on the Steelix's skull, the metal armor cracked and the serpent bellowed as it suddenly went limp and crashed to the street. Hierro bounded off the Steelix's collapsing form and landed gracefully not far from Alex. Giordano shouldered his shotgun and sucked his teeth. "Not bad." Genbu grunted and favored Hierro with a respectful nod.

Pierre flicked his hands, and the psychic wall behind the Steelix shattered into hundreds of tiny shards of light that vanished before they hit the ground. The esper sagged against his Mr. Mime. The psychic type ran his hands through Pierre's limp hair and made small concerned noises while Pierre struggled to take deep breaths.

Up the street, the Baron's cutters had managed to turn the street brawl into a rout. The Sins and Kuromori that could manage it were fleeing into side streets. The police attempted to go after them, but their numbers had been thinned as well, and they lacked the manpower for a proper pursuit. Alex had no doubt that many of the runners would find their way to bolt holes and safe houses in Greenpoint. Giordano brought two fingers to his mouth and whistled. "That's enough, boys! If they're still breathing, leave 'em where they fell and let the police take care of 'em!" The cutters immediately broke off and slipped back into the alleyways they had come from, and Anderson's officers were too exhausted to chase after them. Alex saw Matsuri, Reyes, and a few of the other officers picking their way through the last of the other factions' combatants and looking for any that the Baron's men left alive. Those that weren't in critical condition were cuffed and moved aside so that medical personnel could stabilize the rest.

Giordano smirked. "Redstone's going to be pretty full before all this is over. To say nothing of the morgues."

Alex shook his head. "That was barbaric."

"They would have done the same to us given half a chance, Hawlucha Man. The least you could do is thank me for the help." Giordano shrugged. "I figure one less criminal, one way or the other, makes your life easier too." At Alex's cold glare, Giordano shrugged. "Or maybe not. Tell Captain Anderson that the Avenbrooke Community Fund will help pay for the damages here and make sure the civilians have somewhere to go."

"That's surprisingly magnanimous of your boss."

It was Giordano's turn to glare at Alex. "The boss keeps his promises. He told you and the Ronin that he would defend Avenbrooke from the Sins and the Kuromori. This is just him making good on his word." He turned on his heel. "Let's go, Espalier."

Pierre limped after Giordano, but Alex held up a hand. "Pierre, wait!"

The esper turned around and managed a faint smile. "Trying to save me again?"

"I… yes. Let me help you, Pierre."

"It's a little too late for that."

"The way they treat you is wrong! Can't you see that?" Alex took a step forward, and found himself up against one of Pierre's psychic barriers. He put his hands up against the wall and shook his head. "I couldn't help you before, and that's one of my greatest failures as a hero. But things are different now! If you just come with me, we can—"

"No, Hawlucha Man." Pierre sighed and turned away. "I chose this path, just like you chose yours. There's no going back now." Alex could only watch as Pierre and Mimsy disappeared after Giordano. It wasn't until Alex heard a car drive away into the night that the barrier finally disappeared.

Alex dragged himself down the street past where the police officers and emergency personnel were rounding up the remaining Sin and Kuromori brawlers. Several were dead, and a handful more were clearly in critical condition. Alex was sure that the Baron's men had been thorough in their work, and very few of them would live to see trial. He supposed he should feel something about that, but he wasn't really in the mood to be sympathetic to the people who had leveled two city blocks and displaced over a hundred civilians.

He felt his left leg give out as he passed the husk of a recently collapsed tenement building. The police psychic types had done their work well, and managed to make the building fall inward on itself, sparing the row houses on either side from serious structural damage. The building was a pile of timbers and masonry, with the remains of some furniture and piping visible in the rubble. But the stoop had been left almost completely untouched, and Alex let himself sink down onto the stone stairs. Hierro bounded up next to him and made concerned cooing sounds, but Alex assured his partner that he was fine and just needed to rest for a moment.

Reyes and Matsuri made their way over to him, and the detective handed Alex a paper cup of lukewarm coffee. Alex took it with a silent nod of gratitude and let himself take a moment to inhale the rapturous, heavenly scent of slightly charred, mediocre coffee. Matsuri leaned against one of the chipped stone pillars at the edge of the stoop and sighed. "Hell of a night, boys."

"And it's not going to get any better," Reyes replied. "How you holding up, Hawlucha Man?"

"Sore," Alex said, trying to work some feeling back into his leg. "But I won't really feel it until the morning."

"You want us to get one of the EMTs to take a look at you?" Matsuri asked. "Or get you some painkillers?"

Alex shrugged. "I've been sore for weeks now. You get used to it." He tried to manage a bit of bravado, but even to him it sounded hollow. Lately his body had just been a collection of aches and pains, and he woke up with new bruises every day. Jiro and Johannes kept reminding him to take care of his body and his health, but it was difficult to do that when he was putting himself on the line every night to bring down some new threat.

It was just a matter of learning to compartmentalize, pushing aside the minor aches and pains until they just became a mildly unpleasant background noise. He didn't have the luxury of taking time off to recover, not with the city in the state it was in. Part of being a hero was putting the safety of Clarus City above his personal well-being.

The hero business was all about self-sacrifice, right? Well, Alex figured he was doing his fair share.

Reyes shook his head. "Just once, I'd like a clear-cut win. You know what I mean? Every time we put a stop to these guys, the worst of them slip through our fingers and just make even more trouble a few days later. We can pack Redstone full of these bastards, but they aren't going to go away."

"This was a win," Matsuri said, her tone firm. "We managed to evacuate this entire street with no serious injuries to the civilians, and we're putting more than a score of dangerous criminals behind bars too. That's a victory in my book."

Alex stared into the dregs of his coffee, as if that would give him some answers. "Maybe you're right." He winced as he remembered the haunted look in Pierre's eyes as the esper turned away from him. Pierre had lost his hope, and Alex held himself responsible for that. If he had been able to help the esper when he was first starting out as a hero, maybe things could have been different. But Pierre was right, he had made his choice, and Alex couldn't save him if he didn't want to be saved.

But he could stop other people from succumbing to the same despair that had claimed Pierre. Seeing Jiro Sasaki become Blaziken Man five years ago had filled Alex with passion and inspired him to become a hero too. Blaziken Man had been a symbol of hope for the entire city, and inspired others like Alex to take to the streets to defend their homes. But with the Sins growing in power and the city teetering on the brink, Clarus City needed a new symbol of hope. Alone, the heroes couldn't hold back the tide of violence sweeping through the city any more than they could stop the tide coming into the harbor, but if they all stood together… maybe they could end it once and for all.

An alliance of Clarus City's heroes had once stood ready to put an end to Marcus Braun's reign of terror, however short-lived. Dominion was a more terrifying foe than Sloth had been, certainly, but if the heroes were all united once again, rather than holding the line and fighting their own private battles in their respective boroughs, then perhaps they stood a chance against the esper and her legion of criminals.

It was time to call in some favors.

Alex pushed himself to his feet and staggered down the steps, past Matsuri and Reyes. Hierro jumped up beside him, ready to catch his partner should Alex stumble. "Hey!" the detective said. "Where are you going? The captain wants to debrief."

"Tell the captain I'll catch up with him later. Right now, I need to make a few phone calls."


	25. Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

Salvatore Genovese had been in the business long enough to know that you couldn't call a job done until it was done, but as he sat in the back of a van hurtling down the Greenpoint expressway, he allowed himself a small flush of pride. His crew had done their jobs well, and they had slipped in and out of the Moirai Institute's satellite Greenpoint campus as quietly as anyone could have hoped for. It felt good to be back doing the sort of work he was familiar with after all of the plotting and scheming and inter-faction warfare the Clarus underworld had endured for the past several months.

Sal had been tapped by no less than Pride herself to lead this operation, and had thrown all of the resources of the Sins' organization behind it. With that kind of support, Sal had his pick of any of the Sins' membership to bring along on the heist, so he had assembled a crack team from across the Sins' various disciplines. Three cat burglars from Envy's stable, a bioweapon specialist that worked for Wrath, two of Greed's top enforcers for a bit of extra muscle, and a young hacker who Gluttony kept on retainer to disable the security. And of course, he'd tapped the only man in the city he trusted, his cousin Gian, to drive their getaway van.

The operation had been simple enough on paper. The Moirai Institute, Clarus City's flagship in developing renewal and sustainable energy, had their main campus in a well-secured Lenox Hills office park. But they also maintained a small secret warehouse in Greenpoint to keep some of their projects on ice. The warehouse wasn't on any official records, and only a few of the top engineers at Moirai even knew it existed. The secrecy and the high-tech security system was supposed to keep anything the eggheads stored there safe, but it also meant that the actual living, breathing security was rather lacking. It had been an easy task for Sal's hacker to disable the system via a backdoor while Greed's enforcers took out the handful of security guards outside. Then, the cat burglars had slipped inside, deployed the aerosol weapon that Wrath's scientist provided to take out any security without tripping any alarms before they retrieved their objective, and met the rest of the crew at the rendezvous point.

It had been a clean job with a clean getaway. Sal didn't know why the new boss wanted the generator prototype he had been sent to recover any more than he understood why the crazy esper had sent Wrath and Envy to blow up half of Greenpoint to get some magic gemstone that apparently didn't even work, or why she had spent the first few weeks after consolidating her power gathering up radio transmission equipment. That kind of thing was above his pay grade, and he had been in the business long enough to not ask questions.

He and Gian had joined up with Marconi's crew years ago, almost before he'd started shaving. They'd been a smaller gang, jealously guarding the small bit of territory in Ridgewood they managed to claim for their own, flying under the radar of Eva Muller's import and extortion rackets. But then Julia Richelieu had shown up and started taking out competitors, and one thing led to another, and now Marconi had been dead for nearly ten years. Sal had always been able to tell which way the wind was blowing, so he fell in line behind Richelieu, kept his head down, and followed orders. Years of working for the boss had let him climb the ranks of her organization, and now he was a competent and respected capo. Sure, he'd never be one of the elite cutters that made up the boss's inner circle, but she knew he was a reliable guy who could do what he was instructed and deliver results.

When Marcus Braun had shaken up the Clarus underworld, Sal had done well for himself. With Richelieu throwing in her lot with Sloth early and becoming Pride, Sal was able to get in on the ground floor of the Sins' organization and maintain his comfortable position as a mid-level capo. Even when Dominion had taken out Braun and become the new boss of the bosses, things hadn't changed too much for Sal. Orders still came down, and he still followed them.

He had only met Dominion once, when she decided to inspect some of Pride's capos and enforcers for herself. In her four-inch stilettos and pencil skirt, Dominion hadn't seemed like much, and at first Sal had wondered how this petite woman had managed to take over from the titan of a man that had been Marcus Braun. But then he felt… something, like a hand rifling through his thoughts, running through his brain like a sieve, and he had just known that in that instant, he had no secrets from Dominion. If the new boss had said the word, he would have done anything she asked without hesitation, even if he'd wanted to resist. That kind of power couldn't be fought against, at least not by someone like Sal.

At the end of her inspection, Dominion had snapped her fingers, and about ten of Pride's capos had stepped forward. The looks on their faces told Sal that they weren't in control as they stood in a line in front of Dominion and dropped to their knees. The five blank-faced goons the esper had brought as an escort stepped up and put a bullet through all ten of their skulls. Dominion's lip had curled as she stared out at the remaining capos and gestured with a lazy flick of her wrist to the fresh corpses on the ground. "They didn't want to get with the program," she had said in her high, piping voice. "And now you all know the price of insubordination. If any of you so much as entertain the notion of crossing me, you'll realize that your departed friends got to take the easy way out. Is that clear?"

Sal had never been more terrified in his life.

So when word had come down from Pride herself that the boss had an assignment for him, Sal had known better than to refuse. If Dominion wanted a miniature prototype generator from the Moirai Institute, then Sal was going to get it for her, simple as that.

He stared down at the roughly square metal suitcase currently between his legs and sighed. Pretty soon, he'd be delivering this into Pride's hands, collecting the generous payout that he had been promised, and blowing a solid chunk of it on enough drinks to get the whole business off his mind.

Sal had just about let himself relax when the van suddenly jerked, making him and the rest of his crew strain against their seatbelts. He heard Gian swearing up front, and the wheels of the van screeching against the pavement. "What's going on?" Sal snapped.

"I don't know, Toto!" Gian shouted back. Only Gian still used that particular diminutive of Salvatore's name. It had been what Marconi had called him, back in the day, but Gian was the only one still alive to know that. "I'm flooring it, but we're not moving."

Sal wrenched off his seatbelt and pulled himself up to the driver's seat. As he did, he stumbled forward and realized that the floor of the van was at a slight incline; the back wheels had been lifted from the ground. "What the hell?" Sal muttered. And then the front windshield exploded inward and a flash of light momentarily disoriented him.

The back doors of the van flew open, revealing a woman in a pristine white body suit with a gold and crimson mask obscuring her face. Behind her, a young man with cherubic blonde curls dancing around his head hovered a foot off the ground, his hands outstretched. Sal cursed under his breath. Things had just gotten a lot more complicated.

"You've got one chance to come quietly," Volcarona Mask said, twirling a quarterstaff through the air.

One of Greed's guys, Sal was pretty sure his name was Viktor, drew his semiautomatic and let loose. The esper behind Volcarona Mask didn't even move, but Sal saw his eyes flash just for an instant. Viktor's bullets stopped just as they left the muzzle of the gun and hung suspended for an instant before dropping to the floor of the van with a clatter.

Sal seized the case with the generator. "Run!" Pokeballs flashed behind him as his crew hastily exited the van. Pokemon shrieked and roared as they raced for the edge of the expressway that Sal was now noticing was suspiciously free of other traffic. He heard one of Envy's thieves cry out as Volcarona Mask's staff whipped around. He knew that as the leader of this crew, he was responsible for all of his people, but the momentary distraction was enough for Gian to stumble out of the driver's seat and get clear. When the choice was between a stranger and family, he'd pick his cousin every time.

Sal palmed a pokeball and summoned his Skarmory as he neared the edge of the expressway. The flying type understood immediately what Sal intended, having pulled off this maneuver in similar pursuits over the years. As Sal vaulted over the guardrail, he raised his hands above his head and felt Vito's talons wrap around his upturned wrists. The big bird's wings snapped as he extended them, and with Vito's help, Sal descended safely to the street below before looping back to pick up Gian. He spared a glance over his shoulder and saw Greed's two enforcers rappelling down just far enough for them to jump to the street without injuring themselves, while one of Envy's remaining thieves clung to an Ariados that scuttled down a length of thick silk. The other thief jumped into empty air only to be caught by a telekinetic force produced by his Mismagius and lowered down. Gluttony's hacker joined hands with his Medicham, and the pair of them jumped after the thief, cushioning their landing with a psychic pulse. Wrath's bomber (Reina, he thought her name was) swung down aided by her Carnivine's tendrils.

With the remaining members of his crew assembled, Sal took stock of the situation. He handed off the heavy generator case to Viktor's buddy (Yakov? Yuri?) since the damn thing was heavy, and the brute had biceps the size of watermelons. The sensible thing to do would be for Sal and Vito to fly off with the case and deliver it back to the boss, but Sal could see Volcarona Mask's pokemon partner flitting in the air above the expressway, and Vito wasn't as fast as he used to be. Between the Volcarona and the esper, he wasn't sure his Skarmory would make it. As risky as it was, they'd have to escape on foot.

And if Sal was honest, he liked their odds. They had been stopped only two blocks outside the Warren, the most notorious slum in the city. Its winding streets had thwarted many a pursuit, and every criminal in the city worth his salt had a bolthole or two in the Warren. Perfect.

"Okay," Sal said. "So we've got two heroes on our tail, and probably the cops too. We're going to make a break for the Warren. Stay together if we can, but if things get hairy, bolt. If we get separated, we'll rendezvous at the old Spheal Shipping warehouse. Let's go."

The crew obeyed immediately. Sal appreciated that. He'd gone out of his way to pick old hands, people who knew their business and knew how to follow orders. The seven of them sprinted into the shadowy, labyrinthine streets of the Warren. The streets were too narrow for even streetlights, so illumination was sparse. Sal's crew startled Murkrow, Zubat, and assorted feral ghost types into the air, while Rattata, Venipede and Trubbish picking through the garbage that lined the streets skittered into the shadows. Windows slammed shut and the denizens of the Warren stood clear as Sal's crew hastened into the depths of the slum. When you lived in the Warren, you learned how to mind your own business.

The heroes caught them when they reached the first large confluence of streets.

Volcarona Mask descended from the sky, heralded by a pillar of blisteringly hot air and a gale that forced Vito to the ground with a rattle of iron feathers and made Sal cover his eyes to keep from being blinded by the dust. The young woman wasted no time, setting on them with her staff twirling over her head. She was beside the hacker's Medicham in a heartbeat, battering the fighting type with a flurry of acrobatic kicks. The young woman seemed to spiral around her staff, rather than the other way around. Sal barely had time to process the Medicham dropping to its knees before Volcarona Mask hurled a flashbang right into the midst of Greed's brutes, and the brilliant flash of light disoriented the bruisers as they tried to shoulder their guns and call out their pokemon. Viktor had managed to get his Electabuzz out, but Volcarona Mask was upon them with all the fury of some primordial volcanic god long before they had managed to gather their wits.

The Electabuzz and Ariados tried to pounce on her from behind, only to be confronted by Volcarona Mask's partner. The fiery insect beat its wings twice and hurled the other two pokemon back. Reina unslung a shotgun from her back, but before she could fire off a round, the twin barrels of the gun were seized by an invisible force and curved back on themselves with a shriek of rending metal, bending into a loop that rendered the gun useless. The shotgun was wrenched from the woman's hands by a second application of the invisible force, and the man with the cherubic curls drifted down from a nearby rooftop.

The esper smirked and spreads his hands. "This is usually the part where I say 'be not afraid', but given the circumstances…" He closed his hands into fists, and Sal's crew was lifted from their feet and hurled in every direction. The esper laughed to himself. "You're all screwed."

Reina's Carnivine recovered first, and launched itself at the esper with a snarl. There was a sharp crack as a Kadabra appeared in the air in front of the esper and thrust its spoon into the grass type's gaping maw. The Kadabra conjured a wall of solid light, stopping the Carnivine's attack cold. The psychic type raised its free hand and snapped its fingers, generating a small telekinetic pulse that sent the Carnivine flying into its trainer.

Viktor's partner had called out his Heracross, and the blue beetle had wrenched up a manhole cover from the street. It hurled the metal disk at the esper, hoping to catch the young man unawares, but the esper whirled and stopped the disc without so much as twitching his fingers. "Don't pick fights you can't win," he admonished, and an instant later every manhole cover and storm drain grate within a hundred feet had lifted in the air and began to spin around the crossroads.

Envy's thieves had snuck around Volcarona Mask's flanks, and only the glint of their daggers in the moonlight gave them away as they closed in on the masked hero. She jammed her staff into a crack in the pavement and used it to vault into the air, delivering two roundhouse kicks that knocked the thieves backwards. One slammed into a flying sewer grate and went down with a groan, but Gian caught the second and helped him keep his feet.

"Retreat!" Sal barked, grabbing the generator case and sprinting down an alleyway. He heard his crew scrambling behind him as they hastened away from the heroes. Vito rattled into the sky above Sal, using his bulk to shield his trainer from an aerial attack. Vito spared a quick glance over his shoulder to see who had managed to get away, and was gratified to see that everyone except the downed thief was falling in line.

Volcarona Mask started after them, but her esper friend stuck out an arm. "Hang on, give them a bit of a head start." The kid certainly looked like the posh uptown type, but Sal had never heard of a hero actually being sportsmanlike in the middle of a brawl. Still, he wasn't about to turn down a stroke of good luck when Arceus saw fit to hand one down to him.

It only took two and a half minutes for Sal to figure out why Volcarona Mask had let them get ahead. That was when the music started.

At first, it was just the sound of a single electric guitar ringing out over the rooftops of the Warren, but soon the noise grew, rising to decibel levels that hit Sal and his crew like a physical force. He saw the remaining thief and the hacker fall to their knees and clutch their ears even as he felt his own teeth rattling in his skull. A single sharp note rose up, and Sal heard panes of glass shatter, and then the noise of the guitar started to fade.

But Sal's reprieve was short-lived, because then he heard the singing.

"Better you pray, for the night is falling

Heed the call from the heavens

Follow the night, and the soldier's calling

Bring on the sacrament of the fallen!"

Each word hit like a punch to the gut, and Sal saw Vito crash down on the street. There was a reverberating bellow from somewhere on the rooftops, and a black shape briefly eclipsed the waning moon before shooting into the black night sky. A human figure appeared atop the building at the end of the street, platinum blonde hair streaming behind her as she played another chord on her guitar. Echo had come out to play.

"Come on to the other side

Out of the dark we climb

Gather for the rite, my warriors!

We are the force allied

Into the war we ride

 _For glory!_ "

Two hulking shapes dropped down from the rooftop beside her and unleashed another sonic blast in time with the last screaming note of the sonic hero's chorus. He saw Reina stagger backwards as though struck with a blow. The larger of the singer's pokemon, an Exploud, drove its right fist into its left palm, and a white nimbus of electricity crackled around its hand. Its companion, a Loudred, Sal saw, opened its mouth wide and blasted the Ariados and Mismagius with a burst of air that sent the two pokemon toppling head over backside.

Viktor ordered his Electabuzz forward, and the electric type bravely leaped into the fray against the Exploud. The two exchanged blows that lit up the street with brief flashes of dazzling light, but Sal could see that the Exploud had the Electabuzz beat. The behemoth brought its fist back for one final blow, and the Electabuzz bravely stood its ground to meet it. Their fists collided with a sound like a thunderclap, and the Electabuzz was thrown backwards into Viktor, and he barely managed to keep his feet as he stabilized his partner. The hacker's Medicham tried to attack the Exploud as it generated another static charge, but the Loudred blasted it backwards.

Reina and the thief rallied their pokemon and charged at the two sonic pokemon, only to be stopped in their tracks by another piercing chord from Echo.

"Stand by night and heed the call of the fight

Let your minds go wild before the light

Here we stand, the army of the night!

Sworn to Arceus Invictus!"

A Noivern descended from above and punctuated the final line of Echo's verse with sonic boom that sent Sal backpedaling. He tripped over a stoop and landed on his behind, and the rest of his remaining crew fared no better. He knew that Echo was tough, but she and her pokemon had pinned all of them without breaking a sweat. "I didn't sign up for this shit," Sal grumbled to himself. Then, louder, "Run!"

Echo and her pokemon sent them on their way with another piercing scream, and Sal could feel the blood leaking from his ears as he hustled back down the narrow street. His head was spinning from Echo's auditory assault, and he took corners at random, hoping to find something he recognized to get his bearings. With three heroes on his tail, he needed to find a bolthole, and fast.

He turned down a blind alley and heard his crew panting behind him. The alley stretched between a row of tall tenement buildings, and the moon was angled in such a way as to throw odd, jagged shadows across the cracked pavement. Halfway down the alley, a single man in a tuxedo stood with both hands on an elegantly carved wooden cane. Vito dropped out of the sky and landed in front of his trainer, his steel feathers bristling.

The man looked up and regarded Sal's crew with a cold stare from behind a white domino mask. He tilted his head to the side, and his face twisted into a mocking sneer. Sal had heard rumors about the Phantom, but he hadn't know the guy was such a prick.

Still, something about him sent a shiver down Sal's spine. And that was when he noticed that the Phantom's shadow was pointing in the wrong direction.

The Phantom glanced down and then met Sal's gaze. "Figured out my trick, huh?" The man's shadow grew and split around his body, growing as it did so. The shadows spread outward, covering the entire alley behind the Phantom with a darkness deeper than Sal had ever seen. A single glowing red eye appeared in the darkness, and a Dusknoir materialized behind the Phantom, emitting an eerie spectral hum.

"We gotta run, Toto," Gian whispered. "We've gotta get out of here."

Sal could only nod, but just as he took a step back, the Phantom made a low noise in his throat. "Leaving so soon?" He tapped his cane against the pavement twice, and the darkness behind him _rippled_. Fanged mouths and glowing eyes appeared from the gloom behind the Phantom. The man's mouth stretched into a savage grin not unlike that of the Haunter hovering over his left shoulder. "That's just rude." He thrust his cane out in front of him. " _Get them_!"

The Phantom's spectral legion surged forth, a tide of ghost types sweeping down the alley towards the criminals. Their ghostly babbling rose up in a chorus of shrieks and laughter as they bore down on Sal's crew. The darkness behind the Phantom continued to ripple as more and more ghosts poured out, filling the night sky with a screen of gnashing fangs, glowing eyes, and flicking ghostly fires.

"RUN!" Sal bellowed. Vito shot into the sky with a cacophony of rattling feathers as the ragged remains of his crew turned tail in the face of the Phantom's ghostly legion. The ghosts' eerie cries intensified as their prey fled before them, and the Phantom simply laughed as his pokemon surged forward.

Viktor's partner was seized by a Spiritomb, and a trio a Sableye fell on him with keening shrieks of glee. "Yevgeny!" Viktor roared, but Sal seized the big man's arm and dragged him along.

"We can't save him! He's as good as gone!"

Yevgeny's Heracross charged at the ghost types, but before he could get close, he was snatched up in the claws of the biggest Haunter Sal had ever seen and hurled back towards the dark veil. The Phantom's Dusknoir swept forward and caught the Heracross in a bear hug, dragging it back into the darkness, and the bug type vanished.

Sal dodged around a shrieking Banette and saw Gluttony's hacker and his Medicham dragged into the black void behind the Phantom. He kicked and struggled against the Haunter that grabbed him, but as soon as his head was pulled into the darkness, his struggling abruptly ceased. The Mismagius that accompanied the thieves was set upon by three members of its own species, trying fruitlessly to repel a three-pronged psychic attack.

A Lampent darted in front of Sal, only to be blown away by a gust of wind from Vito. Sal grabbed Gian's arm and pulled him out of the path of a cackling Gengar before sticking two fingers in his mouth and whistling. The sharp, piercing sound cut through the chaos and got the attention of the remnants of his crew. They formed up and managed to fight their way clear of the ghosts, and after a series of frantic turns, Sal started to get his bearings.

He spied a Volcarona flitting over the rooftops and pulled his ragged crew into a dark side street where they would be protected from Volcarona Mask's gaze. The Warren was eerily quiet, the dejected residents hiding out of sight and keeping their heads down, reluctant to get caught in the heroes' crossfire. A single hero in the Warren might have had a difficult time fighting against a crew of Sin operatives, and the people living there might have thrown in their lot with the Sins in the hope for a favorable kickback down the line. But when five of the city's rising stars converged on the little district, the average lowlife saw the way the wind was blowing and stayed well out of the way.

While he caught his breath, Sal did a quick headcount of who was left. Viktor, Reina and her Carnivine, one of Envy's thieves and his Ariados, Gian and Vito. Sal gritted his teeth and hefted the generator's case with a quiet curse. He figured he was pretty strong, but the generator was at least seventy-five, eighty pounds, and he had been lugging it around most of the night. He was tempted to hand it off to Viktor, but he knew that if it came down to another fight, Viktor was much more skilled in arms than he was.

He leaned against the wall of the alley and sucked at his teeth. There was a safe house that some of Pride's capos maintained nearby, with a passage that connected to the old smuggler tunnels in the basement. He figured if they could get there, they would be able to slip by the heroes, and he could get in contact with Pride's people to drop the generator before going to ground until the next crisis hit Clarus City and people forgot all about him.

He was just about to brief his crew when a clatter on the rooftops made all of them snap their heads up. Sal muttered a silent prayer that it was just a feral dark type, but he doubted he would be so lucky. A dark shape shot across the sky, and Sal's fight or flight instincts kicked in. Vito rattled his feathers as something made the fire escape above their heads clang. Envy's thief pulled a knife. "If it's another damn ghost, I swear I'll…" He trailed off, and Sal privately wondered what good a knife would do against one of the Phantom's ghosts.

Viktor raised his gun, and a black mass peeled off the shadows at the top of the fire escape and descended with a whoosh of broad wings. It dropped right in front of Viktor and brought up two metal batons, one on either side of the brute's forearm. Viktor's back stiffened as the air around the batons crackled, and the shadowy figure swiftly disarmed him and kicked the gun between Viktor's legs, where it spun off into the shadows.

Before Sal could fully process what was happening, the dark figure had whirled on the thief with the knife and knocked him down with a roundhouse kick that sent the knife tumbling from his grasp. Sal caught a brief glimpse of white teeth beneath the man's dark cowl as he settled into a fighting stance and put his back to the wall off the alley to keep from being outflanked. The disarmed thief snarled as he recovered his balance and charged in again. The shadowy figure's hand shot out, quick as a striking Seviper, and the thief stumbled backwards, clutching his broken nose.

The Ariados leapt at the man in black, but it was tackled out of the air by a red and green blur. The Hawlucha shrieked as it slammed the arachnid into the ground before turning in a midair backflip to alight beside his partner. "I thought I lost you a few blocks back," Hawlucha Man quipped. "Thanks for letting me catch up!"

Viktor had regained his wits and rushed at Hawlucha Man with a bellow. The hero was caught by surprise, and he hurriedly danced back from Viktor's enraged charge. Hawlucha Man reached the edge of the fire escape and jumped up, wrapping his fingers around the metal grate and dragging his body up and out of Viktor's path. Just as the man passed beneath him, Hawlucha Man dropped down and delivered a kick to the base of Viktor's tailbone, sending him staggering out into the wider street at the end of the alley. He landed awkwardly, and while he tried to recover his balance, Reina's Carnivine lashed out with a pair of vines, ensnaring Hawlucha Man's right arm and left leg. His Hawlucha shrieked in anger, but before he could free his partner, Vito battered him with a wing, knocking the fighting type back. The Hawlucha stumbled across the uneven pavement before finding his footing and lunging at Vito as the Skarmory shot into the sky.

While the two birds battled back in forth in a flurry of flashing talons, the Carnivine pounced just as Viktor came in for another charge. Sal saw Hawlucha Man's teeth flash again as the young man dropped his weight at the last possible moment. Reina's Carnivine sailed over his head and collided with Viktor, and both of them tumbled in a heap. Envy's thief charged in, but Hawlucha Man dispatched him with almost contemptuous ease, sending him crashing into the wall of the alley with graceful, flowing motions. He never even broke his stride.

Reina pulled a wickedly curved knife from her belt and swung wildly at Hawlucha Man, but the hero only stepped to the side as his partner swooped down behind the anarchist and struck her with a kick between the shoulder blades. The woman whirled on the Hawlucha with a growl, but the avian pokemon seized her arm in his talons and dug his claws into her wrist, hard enough to puncture the skin and draw blood. Reina dropped the knife with a scream.

Hawlucha Man continued forward and looked Sal in the eyes. "We can do this the easy way, where you give me the case because I asked nicely. Or we can do this the hard way, where I beat your ass and take it."

Sal shook his head. "I'm more afraid of my boss than I am of you, kid."

"Hard way it is, then."

"You want my cousin? You'll have to go through me first." Gian pushed past Sal and spread his hands. The pokeball at his waist burst open, and an instant later, a Doublade had appeared, wrapping its lavender tassels around Gian's wrists and forearms as the living blades settled into Gian's hands. The Doublade hummed as Gian gripped its twin hilts. "Let's go, Dantès."

Hawlucha Man was suddenly forced onto the defensive as Gian swept forward, his blades flashing with a spectral inner light. Hawlucha Man managed to bring up his steel batons and meet the Doublade blow for blow, but he was quickly losing ground as Gian forced him into a retreat. Sal's cousin had a longer reach than the young vigilante, and Dantès' blades added two feet to that. Hawlucha Man's attacks relied on him getting in close to his foes and dispatching them with a series of lightning-quick strikes, but Gian and Dantès wove a curtain of steel before them that not even Hawlucha Man could breach.

Still, Sal had to admit he was amazed Hawlucha Man was holding his own. His cousin was undoubtedly the best Honedge fencer in the city, and while that might be a narrow superlative, any street brawler worth his salt spoke the name Gian Genovese with the sort of quiet reverence usually reserved for Arcean shepherds talking about their parish's patron saint. He could hardly believe his eyes when Hawlucha Man managed to slip through Gian's guard and score a touch with his baton on Dantès' left tassel. Gian cried out as his arm suddenly went numb, buying Hawlucha Man precious seconds to breathe.

Claws skittered across pavement as Hawlucha Man's pokemon partner sprinted to the hero's side, just in time to drive an uppercut into Viktor's solar plexus as Greed's man tried to flank Hawlucha Man. The Carnivine lashed out with another tendril, but Hawlucha Man was too savvy to fall for the same trick twice. He twisted his wrist just as the vine began to ensnare his arm, dropping one baton into his Hawlucha's waiting talons while he seized the vine with his now-free hand and jerked the Carnivine off balance. With a grunt of effort, Hawlucha Man pivoted on his heel and spun to gather momentum before hurling the Carnivine into the Ariados and its human partner.

He used his remaining baton to fend off Gian while his Hawlucha vaulted over his shoulders, tossed the hero his baton back, and then struck his claws together to set his fists ablaze. The Hawlucha spread his wings and soared upwards to where Vito now circled, startling the Skarmory with an explosive punch.

Sal had heard rumors from some of Pride's other capos about the winged hero from Avenbrooke. They said that despite his unassuming stature, the kid hit like a truck and moved faster than the eye could track, that Hawlucha Man could take down any ten of Richelieu's best cutters at the same time without breaking a sweat, that he knew no fear, felt no pain, and that he was possibly even a literal superhuman. Sal had always assumed that those rumors were exaggerations, excuses made by a bunch of incompetents who had been taken by surprise and let their guards down who were trying to save face in front of their superiors.

But now he was a believer.

Hawlucha Man swept Viktor's legs out from underneath him, and the big man went down. In the second he danced back to catch his breath, Gian seized his opening and swung down with both blades, and Sal knew Hawlucha Man wouldn't have time to block. Gian knew it too, and his cousin's face split into a grin.

A grin that quickly faded as Dantès crashed down on an elegant rapier. The Phantom swung his blade around and sent Gian stumbling off-balance. He glanced over his shoulder at Hawlucha Man. "We have got to stop meeting like this."

Hawlucha Man flashed him a grin as the Phantom countered Gian's counterstrike with a riposte that darted through the whirling Doublade and sent Sal's cousin staggering back wrong-footed. The Phantom's rapier flashed under the streetlights as he and Gian battled back and forth. Dantès' edges glowed with spectral light, and the Doublade's spectral buzz grew in intensity. Gian barked out a laugh as he swept down with his right blade.

There was a rush of air as the Doublade's buzzing was drowned out by a deep basso hum. The Phantom's Dusknoir had appeared from the tuxedoed hero's shadow and stopped the descending sword between its broad palms. "How… How did you?" Gian spluttered.

A pulse of black energy burst from the Dusknoir's antenna, and Dantès jerked Gian backwards in an effort to avoid the Dark Pulse. With Gian wrong-footed, Hawlucha Man swept out from behind the Phantom and jabbed both of his batons into Gian's ribs and unleashed a powerful electrical current. Sal's cousin went rigid as the shock coursed through his body. Hawlucha Man disengaged and danced back a pace, but Gian's reprieve was short-lived. The Phantom appeared at Hawlucha Man's side, and the two heroes lashed out with punches at the same instant. The twin impacts snapped Gian's head back, and he fell to the pavement with a groan.

Sal was about to turn tail and run when the music began again.

"Stand by night and heed the call of the fight

Let your minds go wild before the light

Here we stand, the army of the night!"

The Phantom's ghostly legion bubbled up from the shadows in the nearby alleys as a sonic boom rattled every window in its frame for a two block radius. The ear-piercingly loud wail of a lone electric guitar made Sal clench his teeth, even as the sonic pulse froze him in place. Echo's Loudred and Exploud crashed down from the rooftops on opposite sides of the street, directing their sonic amplification towards the ragged remnants of Sal's crew. Sal saw the Exploud suck in a breath, the pipes along the behemoth's body whistling with the sudden intake of air.

"Lined up side by side and bound we stay

Sent to defy and fight 'til break of day,

We're the army of the night, _so best you pray!_ "

Echo stood at the head of the street, her platinum blonde hair flying behind her like a banner as she called down another sonic assault. The Phantom's ghosts seemed unaffected by the pulsing sound waves generated by her pokemon as they darted in the air above the intersection, howling and screaming with the music. Viktor struggled to his feet and tried to stagger towards Echo, to what end, Sal didn't know.

Before the man had even gone a pace, a column of blisteringly hot air descended from the heavens, singeing Viktor's clothes and hair. A figure clothed in white dropped from the sky, metal quarterstaff whipping through the air. Volcarona Mask landed with a kick to Viktor's tailbone and clocked him upside the head with her staff. "You just don't know when to stay down, do you, big guy?" Reina's Carnivine lunged at her, only to driven back by a cascade of fiery scales from the Volcarona flitting through the air above them. Volcarona Mask flashed her partner a smile as she used her staff to hurl the Ariados into the Exploud's waiting fist.

Reina snarled some incomprehensible string of profanity as she fumbled two aerosol cans from her belt. She pulled the pins at the top and covered her mouth as she rolled them down the street towards the heroes. The cans hissed and began to release thick clouds of noxious green gas. "Archangel, you're on!" Volcarona Mask shouted.

The esper dropped out of the sky and stretched out his hands towards the aerosol cans. The gas they had emitted began to curl back in on itself as the bombs were wrapped in telekinetic bubbles. Archangel snapped his fingers, and the noxious green orbs rocketed skyward. When they had all but vanished from sight overhead, the esper closed his hand into a fist. The two cans clattered back harmlessly to earth, their poisonous contents spent and dissipated harmlessly into the upper air. Reina had drawn her knife and charged, only for the esper's eyes to flash with a subtle inner light. All of Sal's people and their remaining pokemon were seized by an invisible force and hurled backwards in random directions, crashing into masonry and light posts.

"Vito!" Sal shouted from where he fell. "Time for Plan B!" His Skarmory launched itself into the air and shot over his head as Sal hurled the generator's case skyward. The steel type caught it deftly in his claws before slashing its way through the screen of ghost types. The Volcarona tried to give chase, but Vito had too much of a head start. Sal sagged backwards against the wall he had collided with and sighed. He wouldn't be able to avoid a trip across the harbor to Redstone after this, but at least Vito would get the generator to the boss. Even if he was in prison, the Sins found ways to reward those who delivered.

A shriek cut through the din of the ghosts, and Sal saw the damned Hawlucha sprinting over the rooftops. The fighting type leapt and spread its wings wide, flapping madly to gain lift and catch up to Vito. "Aethon!" Volcarona Mask shouted. "Give him a boost!" The Volcarona beat its massive wings, sending a gale out to carry the Hawlucha higher and faster.

"No!" Sal cried. They had come too far to fail, and he silently urged Vito onward. For a second, it seemed like the Skarmory would outpace the Hawlucha, but the fighting type thrust its fists backwards and unleashed two explosive bursts of flame that hurled it forward, giving it just the speed boost it needed to overtake Vito.

The struggle, such as it was, was brief. The Hawlucha rocketed into Vito and drove one fiery fist up underneath the Skarmory's razor-edged wing. The blow knocked Vito off balance and sent him plummeting, and the Hawlucha hastened Vito's descent with a kick just between his wing joints.

The Hawlucha glided back to his human partner, his feathers puffed with pride. The Phantom's Dusknoir slipped briefly aware and returned a moment later carrying Vito's fainted form, depositing the Skarmory on the opposite side of the intersection from Sal. A police helicopter swooped overhead, aiming a brilliant spotlight down on the confluence of streets, and officers had begun appearing from the wider streets of the Warren to take Sal and his crew into custody. With a snap of the Phantom's fingers, Yevgeny and the other members of Sal's crew that had been consumed by his Dusknoir appeared from the shadows, bound and trussed up, and they too were escorted to the waiting police wagons.

Sal could only watch in mute despair as two officers claimed the generator case from the Dusknoir to take into custody. Despite his best efforts, he had failed his mission, and he had been in the business long enough to know what the price of failure was.

Little did Sal know that within the next twenty-four hours, the case would mysteriously disappear from the evidence lockup of the Sixth Precinct, spirited away to Dominion.

Alex watched as the criminals were led away, and couldn't help feeling a swell of satisfaction. Certainly, they weren't the hardest bunch of crooks he had brought down, but they had put up a good fight. Lust's information on the heist had been good, and it allowed him to coordinate with the other heroes to set an ambush. The coalition between the five heroes had been a resounding success, and Alex hoped that word would quickly spread through the underworld and serve as a warning that the heroes would now be working in concert.

The last time the five of them had all worked together was the Sins' assault on the city, although they had each teamed up a few times in the intervening months. But when all five of them were working together, Alex felt like they were _unbeatable_. He ran a hand through Hierro's feathers

Edgar was finishing up a debriefing with Captain Ito of the Sixth when Alex joined up with the other heroes. He exchanged a high five with Joshua (although considering the esper was using his telekinesis to levitate two feet off the ground, it was a low five for him) and bumped fists with Ingrid before doing a complicated handshake with Isabelle that she had developed for them on one of their patrols a few weeks back.

"Who kicks ass?" Isabelle asked as they tapped their fists together twice in the penultimate gesture in the handshake.

"We kick ass," Alex replied as they clasped hands, finishing out the maneuver with a quick fist bump.

"Hell yeah we do!" Isabelle turned to Ingrid. "So I was thinking that for _our_ handshake we can…"

The soft tread of Edgar's patent leather shoes made Alex turn around. Alex grinned. "Thanks for the save back there. I owe you one."

" _Another_ one," Edgar said, deadpan. Then his mouth quirked up in a wry half smile, and he extended his right hand. "You did well out there. I was almost impressed."

Alex returned the handshake. "Not too shabby yourself, Fancypants."

Joshua drifted down so that he was only hovering a few inches off the ground, more or less on eye level with the rest of the heroes, and slung an arm over Alex's shoulders. "We should do this more often. Those guys had no idea what hit them."

Isabelle rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on Archangel. You only say that because the birdbrain talked Jiro into letting you come along." It was no secret that Jiro, Lakshmi and Johannes had always been reluctant to let Joshua partake in the heroes' usual nightly patrols because of the potential destructiveness of his psychic powers, and that wariness had only increased when Dominion took over the city. But Alex had managed to convince Jiro that having Archangel make an appearance in their operation tonight would pay dividends in the underworld by giving the Sins' rank and file another class three esper to fear.

Joshua shrugged. "I always enjoy the chance to get some fresh air."

Edgar wrinkled his nose and glanced around the darkened streets of the Warren. "This is not what I would call 'fresh'."

"The H-Hammer th-thinks the f-five of us help Cl-Clarus City h-have hope," Ingrid said. "W-We _should_ d-do this m-more often; it g-gives people s-something to believe in."

Alex grinned at her. "Exactly! The heroes of Clarus City have been fighting the Sins for years, but we've never had a _team_ of heroes before. The five of us together can take on anything, and it's time that the city knew that!"

"A team of superheroes?" Edgar raised an eyebrow. "What do you think this is, some kind of kid's TV show?" Ingrid and Isabelle glared at him, and the tuxedoed hero demurred, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. "But I suppose a helping hand never hurts."

Alex looped his left arm around Joshua's shoulder and used his right hand to smooth down Hierro's feathered crest, drawing a pleased coo from his partner. Alex met each of the other heroes' eyes in turn. "The Hammer says to always bet on the heroes of Clarus City, right?" He grinned, and the feeling of fierce joy surging through him helped push aside the minor aches and pains in his muscles. "I think it's time the five of us start evening the odds."


	26. Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

Sergei Polovich's breaths came in ragged gasps as he sprinted for all he was worth. The echoes of gunfire were drawing closer, and his mind raced as he tried to think of a way to escape with his life. He had to assume that if his pursuers knew one of his safe houses, they would know where his other bolt holes were. The best he could hope for was to find a place to go to ground until morning and get himself out of Clarus City until the dust settled. Or maybe for good, with the way the winds were turning.

In his haste, he took a wrong turn, but to stop and double back would probably prove fatal as his pursuers closed in. Polovich had been lucky to escape in the first place, and six of his trusted capos hadn't been so lucky. It was clear that the ambush had been planned from someone inside the organization. Polovich was no stranger to inter-faction fighting, and he knew that honor among thieves was a sham. But he had never expected the betrayal he had been faced with.

A baying Mightyena heralded the arrival of a second ambush to head him off. Polovich hurled out a pokeball in front of him, and Polina appeared in a burst of light. The Bastiodon needed no command from her trainer, and lowered her head as she charged forward. The Mightyena and the two cretins who ran behind it were struck with the full force of a charging steel type and hurled unceremoniously to the pavement as Polina barreled onwards.

When they reached a neighborhood Polovich knew, a plan started to form. There was a warehouse only two blocks away with an entrance to the old network of smuggling tunnels under the city. He could let the traitors catch up to him there and then use Maksim to bring the whole place down on their heads while he slipped away into the tunnels before collapsing the entrance behind him. This particular access point connected to a much larger tunnel complex that he could hide out in at least until he could get on a train north to Unova. And from there, he could go anywhere in the world, and the bastards would never find him again.

He barked a command to Polina, and the Bastiodon swung her head around to change directions. By the time they reached the warehouse and Polovich had shot the padlock on the door, he was wheezing. He had never been built for speed, but a man found himself capable of many things when his life was on the line. When he had identified the trapdoor to the underground, he called out Maksim to stand with Polina.

The Metagross braced itself by driving its heavy claws into the stone floor. The steel cross on its face glowed as it summoned its psychic power, ready to attack or defend. Polovich laid his hand on Maksim's rear right leg and felt the mysterious inner workings of the Metagross humming under his touch. With a nod to his partners, he drew his gun and leveled it at the door. He might be able to pick off a few as they came in, thin the numbers and—

The front of the warehouse exploded, throwing debris back towards Polovich. Maksim's eyes flashed, and a wall of interlocking translucent hexagons appeared in front of the three of them. The violence of the explosion quickly dissipated, and Polovich glared across the ruined expanse of the warehouse at Anya Petrovna.

"I am knowing you too well, Sergei," Greed said as she raised her machine gun. "When backed into corner, you bring down the building; so I am taking that away from you." She signaled to her men standing behind her, and they all raised their guns. Her Ursaring bellowed, spreading claws stained red with fresh blood.

Polovich gritted his teeth. "What are you doing, Anya? I am your friend, your trusted Iron Boyar!" Something in Petrovna's face twitched, and suddenly Polovich knew. "It's her, isn't it?" he shouted. "The psychic bitch! She has poisoned you!"

"Shut up, Sergei. Don't make this harder than it has to be."

"Fight her! The Petrovna I pledged myself to would never be so weak as to bow to an unworthy esper!"

"Shut _up_!" Anya screamed. "This is bigger than us! Dominion will allow no dissent in the ranks. There is a list of those who will not accept her. Even if it is only in their minds." She sighed. "It is _because_ you were my trusted boyar that I must be doing this myself." She sighted down the barrel of her gun. "If only you hadn't been such a headstrong ass. I wish it did not have to be this way, Sergei. But for Dominion, it is personal. It is always personal."

She lowered her hand, and she and her men began firing. The bullets bounced off Maksim's psychic barrier, but each impact left a tiny spider web of cracks, and it took almost no time at all for the wall to shatter into hundreds of glowing shards that drifted to the scarred ground. Polina bellowed and charged forward, only to stopped by two Machoke. The fighting types drove their heels into the ground and pushed back against the Bastiodon. Just when it seemed like Polina might win out, the two Machoke drew back their fists and struck Polina's shield-like carapace hard enough to crack it. Polina roared in pain as the Machoke continued to strike with ruthless, methodical persistence.

Maksim's eyes flashed as it hurled the fighting types back, but Polina was already lying prone. Polovich shouted a wordless command, but Maksim understood his fury. It sent vibrations down through its legs and into the ground, knocking several of Greed's men from their feet and buying them precious seconds.

But Anya's Ursaring recovered quickly and charged forward before Maksim could strike again or throw up another defensive barrier, closing the distance between them with uncanny speed. The bear rose up to its full, massive height and raised its heavy arms above its head before bringing them crashing down on Maksim's central disk with enough force to shatter thick concrete. The Metagross' eyes went wide and it emitted a strange low groan as it crashed to the ruined floor, its legs prone and almost limp.

"No," Polovich rasped. And then louder, "No!" He raised his gun and fired off several shots wildly. A few went wide, but two or three struck the Ursaring. The pokemon's thick hide spared it lasting damage, and the bullets seemed to only irritate it. Polovich ground his teeth and turned his gun on Anya. His aim was off, and he only winged her shoulder, not nearly enough to bring her down.

The Ursaring roared when he saw the blood blossom on his trainer's arm, but Greed held up her good hand. "No, Stepa. Let me handle this." As she closed the distance between them, Polovich raised his gun again, but when he pulled the trigger, the hammer only clicked ineffectually. Petrovna shook her head. "Sergei, you were always forgetting to count your shots." Her own gun rattled as she fired several shots through Polovich's abdomen.

The pain nearly made him black out, but Polovich managed to glare up into Petrovna's eyes and spit out a foul oath in their shared mother tongue. "I'll see you in hell, Anya."

"Until then, Sergei."

And after another spray of bullets, the Iron Boyar was dead.

Stocks hated getting his hands dirty.

When he had joined up with Marcus Braun, it had been with the understanding that he would be handling the quieter behind the scenes work, doing the enterprise's accounting and transferring money around offshore accounts. He would help Marcus move their pieces around the chessboard that was Clarus City while the more rough-and-tumble members of their organization took care of the unpleasant day-to-day business.

He had no such understanding with Dominion, though his new employer had recognized his value early on as armchair commander. But tonight, she had dispatched him to personally take care of some unpleasant business that entailed him rolling up his sleeves and going out into the muck. It was distasteful in the extreme, but he wasn't in a position where he could refuse. For one thing, Marinette didn't take kindly to anyone questioning her orders, and furthermore, Stocks couldn't afford to show any lack of resolve for the esper's cause, because to do so would bring suspicion on himself.

Dominion had told him and the other five former Sins that she had been tracking down whispers of insubordination and treachery within her organization, and she was determined to stomp it out immediately before the cancer could take root. That meeting had been merely hours ago, and Stocks had received his marching orders to expunge a few of Dominion's naysayers within his own ranks of informants. There had been no time to send word to Pirozzi or the Avenbrooke heroes to warn them of the citywide bloodbath to come.

The orders had been disseminated on a strict need to know basis, and had word reached the defenders of Clarus City prior to the massacre, Dominion would have known she had a mole at the highest level of her organization. Stocks was reasonably confident that his cover was secure, and that his mental shielding had been able to stand up to Dominion's probing, but he was secretly terrified that while he carried out his orders, Marinette had sent someone to stick a knife in his back too.

Besides, he rationalized that the heroes would learn about the Sin infighting soon enough, when the streets of Clarus began running red with the underworld's blood.

He stood outside one of the clubs he owned and used his thumb to twist his gold wedding band in the pocket of his tailored slacks. With a sigh, he signaled to Mueller's three bruisers to follow him. Marinette had offered him the use of some of Aukai's lot, but he had politely declined and requested some of Eva's more dependable hired help. The anarchists were more than likely to burn the entire club down in their zeal, while thugs under Gluttony's employ could be counted on to only break what they were told. It wasn't like the whole club had to be razed. Stocks never believed that a few bad apples spoiled the whole bunch.

The bouncer at the door demurred at a glare from Stocks' escort, and the leading man threw the gilded doors open. He raised his pistol and discharged three rounds into the air. "Everyone out!" the man roared, sending patrons and scantily dressed servers scrambling for the doors.

Stocks snapped his fingers at the manager as she came to investigate the commotion. "Camilla, bring me Tiffany, Maryanne, Danae, and Marcel."

"Mr. Stocks, what's going on? We had no idea you were coming, or we would have prepared—"

He cut Camilla off with a dismissive flick of his wrist. "This is an audit. Do as I say."

"Yes, Mr. Stocks." Camilla hurried backstage to find the four dancers, her Sableye scurrying at her heels. Stocks took the opportunity to reach over the bar and pour himself a generous measure of gin.

His Xatu hop-flapped behind him and made a clattering noise with her beak. Stocks sighed. "I don't like this any more than you do, Moira. Let's not make it worse than it needs to be." He tossed back the gin and winced. An unpleasant taste for an unpleasant business.

Camilla appeared with the dancers, and Stocks signaled to his escort. The three men fired on the dancers, dropping them with shots through the head. Tiffany, Danae and Marcel were dead before they hit the sticky floor, but it took another shot to put Maryanne down. Camilla screamed as her dancers fell, and one of Eva's men turned to Stocks. "Do you want us to…?"

"No, I'll handle this myself."

Camilla cradled Tiffany's lifeless form and turned up to Stocks. "Why? Why would you do this? They were just—"

"They were passing along information to law enforcement," Stocks said, keeping his voice icy. "Management doesn't appreciate trade secrets getting around." He squatted down to look Camilla in the eyes and drew a pistol from under his jacket. "I know that they were collaborating with the police on your instructions, Camilla. Orders have come down from the top to clean house."

Camilla spat at him, and Stocks winced as the saliva ran down his cheek. "I was only doing what you told me to do," she rasped.

"You mustn't tell such ugly lies, Camilla." Stocks rose to his feet and leveled his gun. Camilla stared up at him with naked hatred, but Stocks found he couldn't pull the trigger. "Moira," he snapped. "Make it quick and painless."

The Xatu spread her wings, and Stocks felt a chill run up his spine. Camilla's eyes rolled back in her head and her neck abruptly snapped at an improbably angle. The madam collapsed forward, her hair just brushing the polished leather of Stocks' shoes. Stocks turned to his escort. "It's done. Let's move on to the next one."

As they exited the club, Stocks reached over the bar and took the translucent blue bottle of gin with him. It was going to be a long night.

Bri was starting to think it was time she took a long vacation, somewhere far, far away from Clarus City. A cat burglar always landed on her feet, but she knew that sooner or later her luck was going to run out.

She just hoped that it would hold out long enough to get her out of the current predicament.

She pressed her back up against the smooth wooden eaves of the Niji Kumo Temple and slowed her breathing as much as she was able. She had thought that with the Kuromori and the Sins at each other's' throats, she could slip into the temple and liberate a few artifacts out from under the ninja clan's collective noses. After the assassins had started stomping around in Avenbrooke, the Baron had made it known that he would be willing to pay good money for anything that would embarrass Saito and Sukiyama. Her intel had told her that the temple would be empty but for a skeleton crew of Kuromori guards and the resident monks, but shortly after she had infiltrated the temple, the city's underworld had imploded.

Although the temple grounds were extensive and the main temple complex was set far back from the street, Bri could hear the commotion outside the temple. Sirens, explosions and gunshots echoed just outside the compound. Droves of Kuromori had begun pouring into the temple not long ago, and now scores of black-clothed assassins milled around on the temple floor. Bri was effectively pinned down, but she had begun to wonder if this wasn't a blessing in disguise. With this many Kuromori around, she was probably safer than anyone else in Clarus City, provided she didn't get caught.

Alecto hovered in the air next to her, the ghost type's eyes wide with panic. Apate crouched on the beam in front of Bri, her fur on end. Bri reached up slowly and ran her fingers along her Haunter's hand. She felt the vapor that made up Alecto's body congeal into something more solid, and the Haunter laced her fingers with her trainer.

"It's going to be okay," Bri whispered to her pokemon. "We're going to sit tight here until the party dies down, and then we're going to sneak out when everyone else goes home. Easy-peasy."

A ripple passed through the crowd of ninjas below, and Bri saw Saito, Sukiyama and Tarou appear behind the temple altar. The giant gilded statue of Ho-oh loomed behind the Kuromori patriarch, and he raised his hands. "It seems that the Sins have turned on themselves. They fight each other in the streets, destroy their own safe houses. Dominion's paranoia has led her to put the torch to her own organization." Bri could hear the smirk that had crept into Saito's voice, even if she couldn't see it. "Make no mistake, this is a joyous occasion for us. When the Sins have crippled themselves, we will set them ablaze again with Ho-oh's cleansing fire! We shall take back what is ours, and far more besides!" His Bisharp rattled its blades, and many other ninjas and pokemon below joined in the cheering.

There was a crash as the heavy bolts to the temple doors were throw aside and the doors swung open with a pulse of psychic power. A shiver ran down Apate's spine, and the Purrloin hissed. The Vixen strode into the temple, her Ninetales crouching at her heels. The woman's polished wooden mask shone in the dim light of the temple, and the crowd parted before her. The steady click-click of stiletto heels against the cobblestones outside presaged the arrival of the Vixen's companion, and Saito hissed in a furious breath. The Shadow couldn't see her, but she recognized the esper's oppressive presence from the chill that raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

"Yuuko, what is the meaning of this?" Sukiyama snarled. "You would profane our most sacred sanctuary with this _abomination_?"

The Vixen drew her poisoned knives and raised her gaze to meet her uncles' eyes. "I have come to claim what is mine."

Saito slashed his hand through the air. "You have even less right than your mother did. The leadership of the clan has always passed through the male line!" He leaned across the altar. "You should have counted yourself lucky we let you live."

A mocking laugh echoed through the temple. "Saito dear, you should be grateful that at least someone in your family is able to see sense." Bri's breath caught in her throat as Dominion stepped into the temple, a troop of Pride's elite capos and cutters at her back.

"This is sacrilege!" Tarou roared.

The Vixen ignored the outburst. "Uncles, you misunderstand. I am here to claim revenge for my mother's death first and foremost. The leadership of the clan is only an added benefit."

"The clan will never follow you!"

"Enough have cast their lot with me already. And when I am the last surviving member of the Kuromori family, the rest will have no choice."

Dominion glided forward and laid her hand on the Vixen's arm. "She's a clever girl, Saito. With the Kuromori joining my forces, I will have complete control of this city, and with my help, Yuuko will make the Kuromori stronger than ever before." The esper snapped her fingers, and three assassins that had attempted to flank her were flung back to crash against the temple walls. She clicked her tongue. "Done talking, are we?"

Bri could only watch as all of the assassins below drew their weapons and summoned their pokemon. But while many of the ninjas advanced on the Sin delegation, a significant number fell on their comrades. The Vixen shouted a command, and her Ninetales bounded forward through the crowd. Fire pooled around the Ninetales' jaws, and the fox whipped up an inferno as it raced towards the altar. Saito's Bisharp lunged, only to be consumed in a white-hot corona of flames.

The Vixen's daggers flashed as she danced through the crowd, dropping ninjas with a flick of her blades as the potent poison paralyzed her foes' nervous system. Dominion's cutters surrounded their boss, their guns ripping through the Kuromori. Bri watched as Tarou vaulted over the altar and charged into the melee with a roar. The Vixen was on him in seconds, darting past her cousin and plunging one dagger into his stomach. Tarou whirled on her, his eyes incredulous, and Yuuko opened his throat with a backhand slash.

Sukiyama's Crobat dove at her, only to be knocked out of the air by Dominion. As the Vixen advanced, Saito scrambled back against the statue of Ho-oh. "She's made you into her creature! The bitch is pulling your strings!"

"No," Yuuko growled. She gestured to her Ninetales, and the fire type engulfed Sukiyama in a blast of intense flames. The reek of burning flesh mixed with the scents of blood and sandalwood incense, making Bri want to gag. The Vixen glanced to the side to confirm sure Sukiyama was dead before advancing on Saito. "Dominion isn't controlling me. I've wanted this ever since you killed my mother."

She sheathed one dagger and grabbed Saito's collar, hauling him to his feet before throwing him down on the altar. Two ninjas ran to help the clan patriarch, only to be blasted back by the Vixen's Ninetales. The Vixen raised her knife over her head and paused. "Hesitating, Yuuko?" Dominion called. "Don't tell me you're having second thoughts."

"Just savoring the moment," the Vixen called back. Her eyes sparkled through the slits in her mask, and she plunged the dagger down into Saito's heart. The spray of blood dappled her mask, and her Ninetales threw back its head and howled. Bri felt sick, and she saw Alecto shrink into herself. The Vixen raised her bloodstained dagger to the Ho-oh statue. "The Kuromori clan now answers to me!"

A group of her traitorous fighters broke off and formed up around her as a bodyguard. "Drop your weapons and curb your pokemon!" Yuuko shouted over the din. "Pledge your loyalty to me and to Dominion, and I will let you live!"

Some of the ninjas threw down their arms and surrendered, and those that continued to fight were quickly overwhelmed. Dominion walked through the carnage and mounted the steps to the altar. The esper extended her hand to the Vixen, and Yuuko lowered her head over Dominion's palm in a gesture of fealty. "Well done," Dominion said.

"Now the war between my clan and your organization is finished."

Dominion shrugged. "Maybe so, but the real war is only just beginning." She rested a hand on the side of the Vixen's mask, the one not stained with her uncle's blood. "With your help, I'll bring this city to its knees."

Bri pressed herself back further into the shadowy eaves while the surviving Kuromori removed their dead, hoping to escape notice until the temple was clear. If she was smart, she would cut her losses get out of the city as quickly as possible, make a new start somewhere far away, like Sinnoh or Kalos.

But Clarus City was her home, and she wasn't going to stand by and let some psychic freak destroy it. Already, her mental gears were turning as she worked to leverage what she knew and how to pass the information along to the right ears.

The damn birdbrain might make a white hat out of her yet.

The Ronin's motorcycle roared as he swung around a tight corner. In the distance, another explosion thundered. People screamed as they fled their homes, as though they'd be any safer on the street. The Ronin gritted his teeth and gunned his bike, pouring on a burst of speed.

The city was tearing itself apart, and he was powerless to stop it. Every cutter and murderer he took down just made room for the next one. When he had first become the Ronin, he had scratched a line onto the sheath of his sword for every criminal he cut down, and now the leather scabbard was a mess of tally marks. And still, the city wasn't any safer.

In all the confusion, he'd racked up three more kills tonight. The bastards had been on his list for a long time, and they were too canny for him to catch under normal circumstances. But with the Sins going to war with themselves and the Baron's men out in force, he had seen a golden opportunity to cross out some names.

Another explosion lit up the street in front of him in a brilliant flash. The Ronin swung his bike around to come to a skidding halt as the buildings nearby erupted in flames. Civilians raced out of the buildings, coughing and spluttering in the smoke. As he watched, a tenement house collapsed. Sirens blared all around, but none of the emergency services workers were on this street. The Ronin swung off his bike and spat.

The people of Clarus City hadn't done anything to deserve this. Provided they kept the fighting to the underworld, the Ronin was more than happy to let the Sins and the Kuromori and the Baron's thugs bludgeon each other to death; one less criminal on the streets meant one less name on his list. But when innocent people were getting caught in the crossfire, that was when he had to put his foot down.

He had seen enough civilian casualties overseas. He wasn't a soldier anymore, but if his city was going to become a warzone, then he was going to take up arms to defend it.

A pack of Wrath's anarchists loped down the street, baying like Mightyena, reveling in the destruction they had caused. The Ronin planted his feet in the middle of the street and reached up to finger the hilt of his broadsword. He blew an errant strand of silver-gray hair from his eyes and settled into his stance. When the bombers started to close in, he drew the sword and cut deep into the leader's neck in a single smooth motion. The other bombers started to draw their knives and guns, but the Ronin was faster. He slammed his sword into the gut of a second and drew the long knife he kept strapped to his thigh. He drove the smaller blade into the neck of a third before wrenching out his sword and slicing a single deep cut across the chest of the fourth, spilling his guts out onto the pavement before switching his grip and lopping off the bastard's head.

Sometime between his second and third strike, the Ronin heard Muramasa's pokeball burst open. The Samurott blasted the anarchists' Magmar with a torrent of water that lifted the fire type of its feet and doused any counterattack it might have launched before whirling on the Toxicroak that had leapt to the third bomber's defense and impaling it through its midsection with his jagged horn. With a contemptuous toss of his head, Muramasa hurled the Toxicroak's corpse into a nearby alley.

The Ronin wiped the blood from his broadsword with an oiled cloth he had strung through two of his belt loops before sheathing it. The crowd of panicked citizens down the street watched in mute shock as he pushed his hair back and looked down on his handiwork. Any further reaction was cut off by a piercing scream from the third floor of one of the burning buildings. The Ronin peered into the smoke and saw two small figures standing near the open window, silhouetted against the flames.

He strode forward and seized the arm of a hysterical woman. "Those your kids?" She shrank back from him, but nodded. The Ronin set his mouth into a hard line. The fire department was nowhere close, and they had other battles to fight. Those kids didn't have time to wait. Well, the hell with it.

He was no hero, but that didn't mean he couldn't do the right thing.

"Muramasa!" he barked. "Keep those fires away from the window. You, kid!" The Ronin snapped his fingers at a shell-shocked kid standing nearby with his Poliwhirl. "Give my Samurott a hand. And hold this." He unbuckled his sword and tossed it underhand to the boy before untying his faded scarf and holding it out to Muramasa.

His Samurott sprayed a gentle stream of water onto the cloth, and the Ronin wrapped the sodden scarf around his face. "Here goes nothing." He charged up to the door of the tenement building and knocked it off its hinges with a tackle. The smoke burned his eyes as he turned around looking for the stairs. A stream of water shot past him, almost immediately evaporating into steam. "Gonna have to do better than that, Muramasa!"

The Ronin made his way carefully to the stairs and started taking them two at a time, doing his best to ignore the searing heat and the smoke that was forcing its way into his lungs. "Come on," he growled to himself. "You smoked a pack a day for years. This is nothing. This is goddamn amateur hour."

He pounded on each door he passed on the second floor landing, making sure no one else had been trapped by the fire. No responses, so he had to hope that no one had passed out from smoke inhalation. When he reached the third floor, his breathing was ragged, and he could feel the skin on his face blistering from the heat. He mentally counted off the doors until he reached the apartment he had seen from the outside and battered down the door. A wall of fire had spread through the front room, and he ran through the blaze, coming out on the far side with nothing more than some smoldering clothes that he hastily beat out. He tried to shout, but his voice came out as a rasp. He stumbled through the apartment, trying to find the kids he had seen from outside.

A misshapen pile next to one of the windows stirred weakly as he reached the last room of the apartment, and the Ronin hastened over to it. The two children shrank back from his bloody, soot streaked face, clutching a catatonic Meowth. The Ronin raised his hands in a placating gesture. "I'm here to help," he rasped. "I'm gonna get you out of here." He leaned out the window. "Muramasa! Give me a hand!"

The Samurott bobbed his head, and the Ronin ducked down beneath the windowsill as a torrent of water sailed over his head. One of the kids shrieked as masonry and charred wood fell around them. "I said help me, not bring the building down on my head!" the Ronin roared.

He gathered up the two children and their pokemon and rushed out of the apartment, vaulting over the flames in the front room. When he got back into the hallway landing, he heard a crash as a portion of the stair down collapsed. He bit off a curse and peered down the stairs. "Okay," he gasped. "Hold on tight. I think… I think I got this."

He tightened his grip on the nearly unconscious children and took two steps back to get a running start. He sprinted forward and leapt for all he was worth, hoping to land on the far side of the stairs. He landed poorly, sinking to a crouch and feeling his knees protest. The floorboards beneath him groaned, and the Ronin didn't have time to get clear. "Oh fu—"

The floor below him buckled and he plunged down in a pile of burning timbers and plaster. He clutched the children close, hoping to use his body as a cushion for them and to cover them from any falling rubble. He landed hard, and while he didn't feel anything break, he knew he wasn't going to be able to get up by himself.

It wasn't the way he planned on dying, but at least they could say he went out trying to do the right thing.

A bellow from outside heralded the arrival of Muramasa, who barreled through the remains of the doorframe and immediately began blasting any nearby fires with streams of water that left craters in what was left of the masonry. The Poliwhirl sat astride the Samurott's back, using controlled pulses of water to beat the flames back from where the Ronin lay stunned. A crowd of men and fighting types followed after him, and began trying to shift the rubble from him and the children.

The Poliwhirl's trainer helped lever the Ronin to his feet. "What the hell are you doing?" the Ronin rasped.

"You heroes do so much for us, it's only right we do the same."

"I'm not a hero."

They stumbled out into the night air, and the Ronin staggered to the street, where he sank into a crouch. Between gasps for breath, he checked himself for serious injuries. The kid picked up his broadsword and held it out to him. "I know who you are," the kid said. "They say you're a monster and a serial killer. But I don't think so. Those kids would have died if you hadn't been here. You might not believe it, but I think you're a hero."

The Ronin spat and pushed himself to his feet. "Shut the fuck up, kid." A tongue of fire leapt up over the tops of the nearby buildings, visible for blocks all around, the worst explosion he had seen all night. The Ronin's eyes went wide. "That's in the Warren. _Fuck_." He shook his head and tried to gather his wits. "The whole damn Warren is going to go up in smoke if that doesn't get contained. Muramasa!"

The kid reached out and caught the Ronin's arm. "What can I do to help?"

"What can…? I don't…"

"I want to help." The kid gestured to several of the bystanders. "We all do. This is our city too."

The Ronin sucked at his teeth. He couldn't send civilians in to take care of something like this. But if the fire started to spread, it was their neighborhood on the line. With the fire department tied up with the rest of the chaos and the Warren's streets as cramped as they were, it might take too long for the professionals to deal with the fire, and the Ronin sure as hell wasn't going to let a whole swathe of his town go up in smoke. Okay then.

"Get everyone you know with water types to form up a perimeter. Stay on the edge of the fire, don't try to be heroes. We're just looking to hold it back." He slung his sword back onto his back. "Those of you without water types, spread the word for the rest of us. It's going to take everything we've got just to make sure we don't all get killed. Muramasa and I will go on ahead and try to get more help."

"We'll be right behind you! You can count on us!"

The Ronin raised a signed eyebrow and recalled Muramasa to his ball. He swung up onto his bike and took off towards the blaze, his hair whipping around his face. Saving those kids didn't make up for everything he had done overseas. Killing the bombers didn't either. He knew he was never going to completely atone for what he'd done, but tonight, he'd put a little good back into the world and took a little evil out of it.

As he roared towards the burning Warren, he steeled his resolve. He was going to take his city back.


	27. Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

Alex let out a breath and squirmed around to try to make his suit jacket fit a little more comfortably. It had been a while since the last time he had worn it, and his pectoral muscles had filled out considerably after his months of hero work. It wasn't ideal, but after a few minutes of preening and adjusting, he figured he had made it as comfortable as possible. He had attracted a few odd stares in the process, but he tried not to let it get to him. Everyone was still on edge in the aftermath of the Purge Night just a few days previously. Alex still had a few healing bruises, and all things considered, he got off light.

He squared his shoulders and strode forward into the small plaza in front of the Harcourt Building. Unlike the hypermodern glass and steel spire of Sasaki Tower or the art deco marvel that was the Forbes Corporation headquarters in downtown Clarus, the Harcourt Building was a stolid brutalist block that dominated the Greenpoint skyline. It broadcast solidity and conservatism, befitting a corporation that had successfully steered Clarus City through several financial recessions and depressions. The sound of footsteps drew Alex's attention away from the building. "It's an eyesore, h-huh?" Ingrid said as she fell in beside Alex. She was chewing a wad of gum, and presently blew a bubble. "I told F-Fancypants he should t-tear the whole t-thing down and rebuild it, b-but he didn't go f-for it."

Alex smirked. "Anything but this would be an improvement." Ingrid blew another bubble and jammed her hands into the pockets of her jacket. The faded leather was almost completely covered in patches from obscure metal bands; Alex counted at least eight different stylized depictions of Giratina. Alex took in the patched jacket, distressed jeans and steel-toed boots while trying to discreetly smooth the wrinkles out of his shirt and straighten his tie. "I thought Edgar said we should dress up for this?"

"Since w-when have I ever listened to F-Fancypants?" She lifted a pair of sunglasses from the neck of her black t-shirt and slid them on. "If he w-wants m-me in his entourage, I'm going to l-look cool as h-hell doing it."

A car door behind them slammed. I'm glad you both could make it." When Alex and Ingrid turned, Edgar Harcourt nodded to them both in turn. "Alex saw him take in his ill-fitting suit and Ingrid's casual clothes, but aside from a quirk of his eyebrow, Edgar apparently decided to take it in stride. His own immaculately tailored suit was a dark charcoal-gray, and he had not deigned to wear a tie, leaving his collar unbuttoned with the kind of blasé disregard for business attire only the fabulously rich could pull off. Overall, it was a far cry from the black tie, tails, and diamond cufflinks Alex was used to seeing Edgar in. He passed an attaché briefcase to Ingrid and let his smirk stretch a bit wider. "You ready to have a little fun?"

"L-Lead the way, F-Fancypants."

They passed through the revolving glass doors into the marbled lobby of the Harcourt Building. Alex had by now grown used to the bustling atrium of Sasaki Tower, and so the subdued hush of the Harcourt Building's lobby came as a mild shock. A security guard glanced up as the three of them walked past the guard station to the front desk, where a pair of receptionists tapped away on their keyboards. Edgar cleared his throat rather imperiously, making one of the receptionists look up. "Yes, can I help you?" he asked, polite but sounding rather bored and put out.

"I need to get to the executive boardroom."

"Sir, I'm afraid I can't just let you—"

Edgar cut him off with a brusque wave of his hand. Ingrid popped her gum. "I sent word to Lorenz two days ago and told the board to expect me." Edgar heaved an exasperated sigh, and Alex had fight down a smirk. Edgar was really enjoying this too much. "Did they really not pass that along to you?"

"The board meeting's full agenda will become a matter of public record in a few—"

"As a majority shareholder, I believe I have the right to sit in on the meeting."

"A majority shareholder?" The man looked up for the first time. "And what is your name, sir?"

"It's on the building." Edgar drew a folio of documents from under his jacket and laid them out on the desk. Alex couldn't make sense of them, but they seemed to include a lot of references to shares and Harcourt Ltd.

Both receptionists blanched. "M-Mr. Harcourt? But it's been years since you…"

"I'm aware," Edgar said. "I've been away for too long. I think it's past time a Harcourt was back at the helm of the firm. Now, if you would allow my associates and I to pass?"

The receptionist gestured with a shaking hand to a small device on the desk. "Mr. Harcourt, before we do that, we need to confirm… it's for security purposes. I'm sure you understand?"

Edgar rolled his eyes and held out his hand. "Yes, yes." He lifted the retinal scanner to his face and pressed it against his eyes. A small light on the machine flashed, the receptionist swallowed.

"Y-You're free to go through, Mr. Harcourt. The boardroom is on—"

"I know where it is, thank you." Edgar snapped his fingers and started towards the elevators.

"Uh, your associates, they need to vetted and…"

"I personally vouch for them. Where I go, they go."

"Uh… yes. Of course. Okay."

The elevator doors slid open, and the three of them boarded. After Edgar had pressed the button for the forty eighth floor and the doors had swept shut, Ingrid doubled over with laughter. "Th-that was hilarious! D-Did you see the l-looks on their faces?" She took a deep breath and tried to steady herself before affecting an exaggerated imitation of Edgar. "'As a m-majority shareholder', I almost lost it."

Alex grinned. "It was a little over the top, Ed."

Edgar shrugged. "I thought it was a great performance."

"You n-need to get out more, F-Fancypants."

"Yeah, how long were you planning that little speech?"

Edgar rolled his eyes and brushed a nonexistent bit of dust from his pant leg. "We're here. Time for the real show." The elevator dinged and the doors opened on an elegantly decorated corridor lined with original oil paintings. Edgar appraised the décor with a haughty stare and motioned the other two on. They proceeded down the corridor to a glass-walled conference room with an elegant hardwood table surrounded by gray-haired men and woman attended by a small legion of aides.

Alex cut in front of Edgar to open the door for him, and every head in the room turned as the heir of the Harcourt corporation swept into the meeting. He inclined his head. "Esteemed colleagues of the board, for those of you who may not know me, my name is Edgar Harcourt." A ripple passed through the room as Edgar turned to a man with rather impressive sideburns sitting at the head of the table. "Lorenz, I think you're in my seat."

The man shook his head. "This is… you shouldn't…" He took a breath and gathered himself. "Eddie, I am the chairman of the board, and I am leading this meeting. Whatever you have to discuss, we can do so privately later."

"You are the chairman of the board _in absentia_. Effective immediately, I am assuming my place at the head of this company as stipulated in my parents' will. We can discuss the nuts and bolts of this transition later, Lorenz, but for the time being _I_ will be leading this meeting, and _you_ are in my seat." Edgar raised an eyebrow, Ingrid popped her gum again, and Alex tried desperately to keep a straight face. After a terse moment, Lorenz stood up and made to move to a spot down the table, but before he could, Edgar seized his arm. "And Lorenz… going forward you will address me as _Mr. Harcourt_."

Lorenz sucked in a breath and nodded. "Of course, Mr. Harcourt."

Edgar flashed a cold smile and slid into the seat at the head of the table, with Alex and Ingrid taking up positions just behind him. "Now then, might I have a copy of that agenda?" When the closest administrative assistant slid him the sheaf of paper, he idly scanned. "Where were we?"

"We had just finished a review on our third quarter investment performance and a brief on fourth quarter projections," a woman down the table said.

"Bring me up to speed later." Edgar snapped his fingers and held out a hand. Ingrid put the briefcase on the table, popped the clasps, and removed a sheaf of paperwork on top that she then dropped into Edgar's hand. Alex thought the whole thing looked a little rehearsed, but they _were_ there to put on a show. Edgar laid the documents out on the table and looked out at the board. "I'm adding a new item to the agenda, for your immediate consideration. It is no exaggeration to say that this matter is why I have decided to end my, ah, extended leave of absence and return to the public sphere." He cleared his throat and handed a pile of documents to the board member sitting next to him. "Take one of those and pass it around, would you? Thank you. Now, we are all aware of what transpired in our city just a few nights prior. The city's criminal element has finally spiraled out of control, and in doing so they leveled a significant portion of Clarus City. I propose that the board creates a new Harcourt Foundation to invest in and preserve the infrastructure of our city and support the communities that have been ravaged by the Sins' actions."

By now, Edgar's proposal had circulated, and muttered conversations bubbled up as the board saw just how much money Edgar was proposing to move into the new foundation. "Clarus City has been home to Harcourt Ltd. for five generations," Edgar continued, ignoring the buzz. "And in that time, the firm has enjoyed favorable taxation rates, lax regulation, and little oversight. And what have we given the city in return?"

"We have created jobs!" Lorenz snapped. "We have generated wealth for the city! We have invested in… in…"

"In favorable ventures that insulate the firm from risk," Edgar shot back. "And in the meantime, the firm has lent money to the average rank and file citizens of Clarus City with predatory interest rates, knowing full well that they would never be able to pay us back. The company that bears my name has for years plunged families into a generational cycle of debt. You may say that the Sins are the ones destroying this city, but the foundation for that was laid long ago by the Harcourts. It ends now. It's time we started giving back to the city we ravaged."

"You think we can change that overnight?" one of the men down the table roared.

"Of course not. But I'm young, and I'm back in control of the company. I've got time to put this to rights."

Lorenz stood up and slammed his hand down on the table. "Your father would never have approved of this!"

"My father was a tight-fisted asshole who's just as much to blame as the rest of you," Edgar snapped. "But he's not here anymore, and I'm going to have to clean up the mess he left me with."

"What do you know?" Lorenz hissed. "You've been shut up in your mansion for years, you spoiled, up-jumped—"

"I know enough." Edgar waved his hand lazily, and an eerie hiss filled the room. A Haunter bubbled up from Lorenz's shadow and grabbed the chairman's collar, jerking him back into his seat. Edgar nodded to the ghost type as it vanished into a cloud of vapor and went on, "I know that by the end of the week, Forbes Corp and Sasaki Industries will be announcing similar efforts in addition to the charity work they already engage in. If Harcourt Ltd. acts quickly, we can look like we're leading the pack in post-Purge outreach and ride the tide of public goodwill."

"How can you know that?" a board member cried.

Edgar reached into his pocket, drew out his cellphone, and opened a text message. "I know because Isabelle Forbes told me herself. The company has been given an opportunity to get out ahead of this and completely change public perception of us." He sighed. "We lost a key opportunity to increase public goodwill after the Sins' attack on midtown a few months ago. The Purge was far worse than that, and affected far more innocent people. You may think I was a recluse for the past few years, but even shut-ins can read the newspaper. I can see that investors are panicking and pulling out of Clarus City, and that's bad for our bottom line. If we adopt my proposal, Harcourt Ltd. would be making a significant contribution to the city's infrastructure and future, which would inspire investor confidence. It may not be enough to singlehandedly re-stabilize the market, but between us, Forbes Corp and Sasaki Industries, it just might work."

A chorus of murmurs went up at this, and Edgar cleared his throat to re-center the attention of the room on him. "I'm glad to see at least a few of you are considering this, but whether all of you support this or none of you do, it's immaterial. My proposal needs just a simple majority approval to pass, which I have already secured. As the sole surviving member of the Harcourt family, I control all of my family's stock, a total of fifty-one percent, making me a majority shareholder. At this point, a vote is merely a formality. My presence here means the measure passes."

Lorenz started to say something, but Edgar forestalled him with a raised hand. "It's perfectly legal and within my rights, Lorenz. I've had plenty of time to read the corporate governance bylaws in my self-imposed exile." He snapped his fingers, and Ingrid dropped another sheaf of papers into his hand. Alex could tell she was trying not to crack up. Edgar slid the folio across the table to Lorenz. "Believe me, I've done my diligence. All relevant passages within the bylaws have been marked and highlighted, in case you don't believe me. But I think you would know plenty about how the majority shares rule works, since you've served as my proxy for the last five years. Now, as I've said, the vote is merely a formality, but for the sake of procedure and the meeting minutes, all in favor of the creation of the Harcourt Charitable Foundation?"

A few tentative hands went up, and Alex suspected it was mostly because the board saw the winds changing in Edgar's favor now that he had reemerged to take control of the company. Edgar grinned. "And the measure carries." He scanned the meeting agenda and idly flicked his hand. "The rest of this is all routine business and approvals. Lorenz, you know how I'll vote on those, so I leave it in your hands. I'll give you a call later on to set up a meeting about transferring my responsibilities back when I officially resume control of the company, but for now, I have other matters to attend to." He stood up and swept out of the room, Alex and Ingrid trailing in his wake.

When they boarded the elevator back to the lobby, Ingrid burst out laughing. "Did y-you see th-their faces? I th-thought Lorenz w-was going to b-bust an artery!"

"Is it really okay to just leave like that?" Alex asked.

Edgar snorted. "You think my father ever sat through one of those things? He just breezed in, told the board how he expected them to vote and left. I needed to let the board know I was back, and that I was done letting Lorenz push me aside. If I manage to do some good for this city along the way, that's even better. It's about time this company started pulling its weight."

"How are y-you going to s-swing bring the p-president of this p-place and keep up the n-night gig?"

"I'll work something out. I'll probably wind up delegating most of the day-to-day business to Lorenz and the other directors, but I meant what I said back there. It's time a Harcourt was back in charge, and Lorenz is never going to push me aside again." The elevator dinged, and they walked out into the lobby. Edgar glanced down at his designer watch. "What do you say we grab lunch?"

"Are you paying?" Alex asked.

"You're an i-intern, I w-work at a g-guitar store, and F-Fancypants is the p-president of th-third biggest company in the city. D-Damn right he's paying." Ingrid glanced sidelong at Edgar. "And we're n-not going to a n-noodle stand this time, either."

"Of course not," Edgar said. "We're celebrating! I've heard of a tapas place that opened a few weeks ago by the river that I've been wanting to try. What do you s—"

All three of their phones chimed in unison. Alex glanced down at the text and then at the other two heroes. "It's from Jiro."

"Ours too," Edgar said.

Alex was already reading the message. "There's going to be a meeting at Forbes Manor in two hours. Looks like he's calling everyone in again, just like when we went against Braun."

"About damn t-time," Ingrid said.

Edgar was scrolling through his speed dial. "Looks like we'll need a rain check on lunch. I'll call the car around."

Alex, Ingrid and Edgar arrived at Forbes Manor a short while later and were buzzed through the automated security system at the gate. Edgar told his driver they would likely be there for a while and would call when he was finished. A battered pickup truck with "Reeves Locksmith" emblazoned on the door was parked on the looping front drive, and as Alex crossed the front lawn, an old sedan pulled up. The car stopped, and a petite woman with spiked blonde hair swung out. She glanced at the truck and nodded before turning to the three young heroes.

"Haven't seen you kids in a while. Holding down the east side, right?"

"Who are you?" Edgar asked.

The woman blinked. "I'm the Cavalier." At Edgar's skeptical look, she sighed in exasperation. "What, you think I'm going to ride up here all suited up in broad daylight? You're not in costume either."

Alex narrowed his eyes. "I hear you had a busy Purge Night. How long did it take you to get all the blood off your armor?"

"You don't approve of how I work? I think we're well past trying to keep our methods nonlethal."

"From the sound of it, you never really concerned yourself with that to start with."

Edgar stepped between the two of them. "Hey, easy, we're all on the same side here." He extended his hand. "Edgar Harcourt. The Phantom." He gestured with a quick turn of his head. "That's Echo, and Hawlucha Man."

"I figured," the Cavalier said. "Name's Sonya Fabron." She turned back to Alex. "The Phantom's right, we can't afford to be fighting among ourselves. You may not agree with what I do, but I can promise you that the only people I'm hurting are the ones who deserve it." When Alex opened his mouth to respond, Sonya held up a hand. "Spare me the arguments. If you think that letting these fuckers live to fight another day gives you the moral high ground, then fine. But I'm putting my life on the line every time I go up against them, and I'm not letting anyone get away to get revenge on me if I can help it. The Sins never deserved mercy, and now more than ever we need a permanent solution to keep our city safe."

Alex's hands were balled into fists, and Ingrid put a restraining hand on his shoulder. "L-Let's go inside. Jiro w-wouldn't have c-called us here if it w-wasn't important."

"Right," Alex managed to say. "Let's go." He turned on his heel and stalked away from the Cavalier before his composure slipped any further. Edgar and Ingrid fell in behind him, with the Cavalier taking up the rear at a considerable distance. They walked through the lavish Forbes mansion to the secure meeting room at the center of the ground floor where months ago the heroes of Clarus City had laid out a desperate plan to save the Sins' hostages from Marcus Braun's clutches.

Isabelle looked up as they approached and forced a smile. "Good, you're here. Grab some seats, we'll start in a few."

Jiro, Lakshmi and Johannes sat around a low coffee table with their heads together in a murmured conversation. Joshua and Newton hung back in a corner of the room. The Kadabra had a hand on the esper's arm, and Joshua looked troubled. Captain Unova sat on the edge of one of the couches in full hero regalia, his expression grim. Next to him sat a bearded man with a Nuzleaf, who Alex took to be the Gunslinger. The bearded man stood up when Sonya walked in. "Reeves," she said. "I tried calling you for a ride."

"I was finishing up a job near the bridge, and it sounded important. I didn't think it was worth it to double back." Reeves shrugged, but Alex saw his eyes turn up at the corners as he slipped on the Gunslinger persona. "Sorry, partner."

"You know I hate it when you call me that."

"You guys c-carpool?" Ingrid asked.

"Yeah, sometimes." Sonya slumped down into a chair. "Saves us each a few bucks here and there."

Ingrid cast Edgar a significant glance. "M-Maybe we should st-start d-doing that. I w-wouldn't mind using that c-car service every once in a w-while."

Edgar rolled his eyes. "The car service isn't cheap."

"D-Didn't you j-just m-make a big show of t-taking b-back your company, F-Fancypants?"

Alex sat down next to Jonathan and nodded. "Made it through the Purge all right?"

"It was touch and go for a little while, but George and I pulled through. What about you?"

"Hierro and I were running ourselves ragged all over Avenbrooke. The Baron put some of his capos out to help keep the peace, and once I realized they were actually there to help, we managed to hold things down. All things considered, Avenbrooke got off easy." He grinned. "Y'know, there were a few times when Hierro and I showed up and the Sins cut their losses and ran. I guess someone's been putting out word in the underworld that a fight with Hawlucha Man is more trouble than it's worth."

"You let them get away?'

"Oh hell no. We chased them into the police's hands and let the cops take it from there."

Jiro stood up and cleared his throat. "All right, let's get started. You know I wouldn't call you here if it wasn't an emergency. Just being together like this presents a substantial risk for all of us, but for the time being we can assume that Forbes manor is secure."

"You're starting without me, huh?" The gathered heroes turned to see the Ronin standing at the door of the conference room, his hands shoved into the pockets of his battered leather jacket.

Johannes rose to his feet and grinned. "The savior of the Warren! Glad you could make it."

The Ronin rolled his eyes. "Don't start that crap with me."

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. "I heard that if you hadn't stepped in, half the east side would have gone up in smoke."

"It wasn't as bad as that," the Ronin grumbled. "I just did what anyone would've." He dropped into a chair next to Alex and gestured at Jiro. "You want to do something about this shit, right? Well, I'm listening."

Alex leaned over to whisper to the other Avenbrooke vigilante. "Decided to be a hero after all, huh?"

"Shut up, kid."

Jiro nodded. "As I was saying, the situation has gotten dire enough for me to call this assembly of Clarus's heroes. The Purge has made it clear that the Sins' war in the underworld has gone too far. Too many civilians are being injured, and with Dominion's power and influence growing, it's difficult to know who we can trust. But everyone in this room has been actively engaged in combatting the Sins, and I think it's safe to assume we're all on the same side. If you need confirmation of my own bona fides, or those of Johannes or Lakshmi, we're willing to submit to scrutiny. I don't want anyone to think they've been lured here under false pretenses."

"We believe you," Sonya said. "Cut the crap and tell us how we're going to kick the Sins' asses."

Lakshmi favored the Cavalier with a wan smile. "Dominion has proved difficult to pin down. In the early days of her takeover, she moved around her base of operations frequently, which made it difficult to track her, especially with her being so erratic. But our information network has recently identified a warehouse complex in Ridgewood that was purchased through what used to be one of Marcus Braun's more obscure shell companies. We have observed a lot of Sin traffic through that location, and have spotted Dominion herself there on multiple occasions. It appears that this complex has become the main base of the Sins' operation.

"Unfortunately, we can't pass this information along to the police. We have reason to believe that Dominion has successfully infiltrated the police force at all levels. If the police force were to plan a raid on the facility, Dominion would hear about it and have enough time to pack up her operation and escape to a secondary location. Jiro, Johannes and I will be launching a surprise attack on the facility in three days' time."

Edgar leaned forward. "That's insane."

"Not as insane as you might think," Johannes replied. "After the Purge, the Sins' forces have taken a considerable hit. The organization is as weak as it's ever been, even if the rumors about them joining forces with the Kuromori are true. Dominion shot herself in the foot trying to purge her ranks of dissent, and we're going to take advantage of that."

"But the Phantom has a point," Jiro said. "Even weakened as they are, attacking the center of the Sins' power poses considerable risks. It's… it's very likely that the three of us might not survive doing it alone. And that brings me back to why we've called you here today. I really can't ask you to sacrifice any more than you already have, but…"

"You want us to fight with you," Isabelle said. "Jiro, why didn't you tell me this ahead of time?"

"The fewer people who knew about this, the safer the operation—"

"Dude. I've fighting this war as long as you three, there's no way in hell I'm backing out now. I'm going."

"Same here," Alex said, rising to his feet.

Ingrid and Edgar stood as well. "We're in too," Edgar said.

"After what those b-bastards have done to G-Greenpoint, it'll b-be my p-pleasure."

"You couldn't keep me away if you tried!" Captain Unova said.

Sonya's lips curled up into a predatory smile. "I can hardly wait."

The Gunslinger took a deep breath. "You can count on me to have your backs, partner."

Alex glanced down at the Ronin, and the older man nodded slowly. "I'm no hero, but I swore to protect this city. I'm in."

Joshua stepped forward. "Dominion needs to be stopped. I'll do everything in my power to help." He grinned. "And my power's nothing to scoff at!"

Johannes grinned at the assembled heroes. "That's what I like to hear! Clarus City knows that it can always bet on us to keep it safe."

Jiro took a deep breath. "You all need to understand that this is going to be an incredibly dangerous operation. Bravado is all well and good, but it's very likely that none of us will survive."

"We've never lost yet!" Isabelle shot back. "Every time we got knocked down, we just came back up swinging harder. That's what heroes like us do! The city needs us now more than ever, and if you think I'm going to sit on my hands while the three of you go off to fight, you're insane!"

"I know, but—"

"No buts! You said the same crap when we all went off to fight Sloth, and none of us backed down then either." Isabelle slammed her hand down on the arm of her chair. "Every one of us has spent months fighting our own battles against the Sins, just trying to hold the line and keep our city safe. If you ask me, it's way past time we brought the fight to them. Enough with playing defense, right?"

Edgar nodded. "None of us would be sitting here if we couldn't handle ourselves in a fight. How is an operation like this any different than what we do every night? Sure, we're facing long odds, but we do that every day. Jiro, we all know the risks. We've known them for a long time. We're fighting anyway."

"This city is our home," Alex added. "We know what it might cost to protect it, and we're all comfortable paying that price. We knew the risks when we agreed to fight; you don't have to remind us again."

Jiro inclined his head to the three young heroes. "You're right. So, we're a united front. I'm making the full resources of my company available to all of you. If there are any equipment upgrades you need that can be made in the next three days, let me know. I want us going into this at full strength."

Johannes took the floor. "We've all been at this long enough to know that the second the action starts, any plan we make is going to go to hell in a hand basket. But we've outlined a general plan of attack, and formulated several broad strategies that we can tailor on the fly when the assault begins." He picked up a tablet and projected the map it showed onto the room's larger screen. "The three of us planned to stage our attack from here as soon as it was dark…"


	28. Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

Alex crouched atop the roof of the low office building, keeping himself in the shadow of the building's HVAC unit. Hierro knelt beside him, the Hawlucha's feathers puffed up in anticipation of the fight to come. Isabelle checked the flash grenades on her belt and nodded once when Alex caught her eye. Hidden from sight on other rooftops and in the alleys below, the other heroes of Clarus City were performing their own pre-battle checks. Alex felt a breathless anticipation as he waited for Jiro to begin the assault on the Sins' compound.

Waiting for a fight went against his usual M.O. for hero work. In most altercations he had been involved in, he had dropped out of the sky to surprise his foes in the middle of their criminal activity. Setting himself in a predetermined place and waiting for signals from his allies had become more common as he had teamed up with the other heroes in the intervening months, but even so, every fiber of Alex's being quivered as he waited for the shot of adrenaline that would herald the start of the fight.

Streetlights flickered on as the last light of the sun sank below the rolling hills west of the city. Isabelle cracked her knuckles and rolled her neck. "Any minute now."

A sudden eruption of fire near the barbed wire fence of the compound sent the two heroes scrambling. Alex and Hierro hurled themselves into the air as Isabelle summoned Aethon. The Volcarona surged to join the Alex and Hierro, using his broad wings to create gusts of wind that propelled them along and helped maintain their altitude. Alex heard the clatter of hooves on pavement below and the roar of a motorcycle engine. The Cavalier and the Ronin burst from two alleys astride their respective mounts. The Ronin held his broadsword perpendicular to his body, while the Cavalier's lance and armor gleamed in the light of her Rapidash's flames. A blue and gray blur whipped through the air beside her, and Alex only caught the briefest glance of the Honedge as it paused to let its trainer catch up.

Gunshots echoed in the evening air, and the first few shots were echoed by a deep basso roar that rattled the nearby windows in their frames. "That would be Forte," Alex muttered as he angled his body to catch one of Aethon's gusts. Dark shapes were taking to the air above the Sins' territory, congealing into a thick cloud of ghost and flying types. But just as quickly as it formed, the cloud dissipated as a dart descended from the heavens, cloaked in a brilliant white light. George pulled out of his dive and whipped in a tight turn, coming in for another pass as Captain Unova unclipped from his back. Explosions blossomed against the darkening sky as the Gunslinger and Geronimo laid down covering fire for the Braviary.

"Let's bring the party, birdbrain!" Isabelle shouted. Another strong wind current from Aethon sent Alex and Hierro shooting out over the mangled section of the compound fence, where Blaziken Man and the Dryad had breached the Sins perimeter and had called the attention of the sentries. The Dryad's myriad grass types pushed back against the hastily mustered Sin forces, splitting the pavement as they summoned lashing vines from beneath the ground. The Rose and Iron legions slammed into the guards' pokemon, and the Roserade and Scizor pressed against their far less organized foes. A corona of fire erupted from a knot of enforcers as Masakado lashed out with a series of lightning-fast strikes, each hit punctuated by an explosion.

Alex pulled his wings in close, plummeting down and contorting at the last moment to land with a spinning kick that drove a Sin enforcer to his knees. He struck the man's stunned Electabuzz with an uppercut that snapped the electric type's head back as Hierro dropped down behind him. His partner's claws were already surrounded by dancing nimbuses of flame, and the Hawlucha jumped at the thickest knot of Sin fighters with a scream. Alex drew his batons and cracked a Machoke across the face, knocking the fighting type off-balance long enough for Captain Unova to grab its arm and hurl the Machoke over his shoulder and into the pavement.

"Excadrill Bursts Upward?" Alex said.

"Simple but effective," Captain Unova replied as he settled into a kickboxing stance. "I'll break out the fancy stuff later."

Blaziken Man's armor blazed as he launched bursts of flame from specially designed panels on his palms and the bottoms of his feet. One of the Dryad's Torterra bellowed as it butted heads with a Bastiodon, and Alex danced backwards to avoid the advancing Rose legion. A whistling of air heralded the arrival of Forte and Mezzo, and the two sonic pokemon took aim at the cloud of avian and spectral pokemon that George and the Gunslinger had been keeping away from the melee. Captain Unova whistled to his partner, and George dove out of range as Mezzo and Forte launched two sonic blasts up into the cloud.

The rush of air and sound disoriented the milling pokemon, sending several crashing to the ground. Those that remained were assaulted by another sonic attack from above as Crescita and Echo descended, and those that had weathered the initial attack were scattered as the Noivern punched through them. Echo leapt from the dragon's back to land between Mezzo and Forte, and the dragon shot back up into the air to join George in taking out the last of the Sins' aerial cover.

By now, the alarm had been raised, and more of the Sins' elite fighters had joined the battle. Alex saw several combatants dressed in the combat blacks of the Kuromori, and took that the mean that the rumors of the ninja clan coming under Dominion's control were true. The Sin capos were joining the fray, elite cutters and their pokemon who had fought their way up through the Clarus underworld to stand just below the Sins themselves. Alex and Hierro fought back to back in the center of a mob of snarling humans and pokemon, doing everything they could to beat their foes back. The Sin fighters had pressed in so close that their firearms were ineffective, but Alex knew their knives and whips would be just as deadly.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sin operatives and pokemon hurled through the air by the percussive force of Echo's attacks, and the brilliant flashes of light as Volcarona Mask, Blaziken Man and Masakado cleaved through the crowd to fight beside each other. Aethon wheeled through the sky above them, the fiery scales of his wings blazing like a second sun.

The Ronin had abandoned his motorcycle and summoned Muramasa, and the two of them cut down anyone who was unfortunate to get within striking range of their blades. The Ronin's face was already spattered with the blood of his victims, and his mouth was pulled back into a rictus of a grin as he drove further into the crowd. The Cavalier galloped past, her lance as bloody as the Ronin's blade. Bullets were useless against the thick armor she and her Rapidash wore, and she and her Honedge cut down those who fled before her with ruthless efficiency. "THE TIME FOR MERCY IS LONG PAST!" her modified voice boomed from within her helmet. "EXPECT NO QUARTER!" Explosions from the Gunslinger's trick bullets exploded around the Cavalier, driving opponents into her path.

In the center of the fighting, a large black mass rose up and began emitting an unearthly hum. The black shape twisted and contorted, resolving itself into a towering Dusknoir. Gregor opened the gaping mouth on his chest wide, and then reached in with both of his hands to pull the yawning cavity still wider. A figure dressed in a pristine tuxedo stepped out of the darkness within, and the second the Phantom set foot on the pavement, his entire army of ghosts surged out of Gregor's black void behind him, howling and shrieking as they took the skies to harry the Sins' forces.

A whip wrapped around Alex's wrist and dragged him off-balance, nearly sending him toppling to the ground. Hierro reached out and seized Alex's arm to steady him, but in the Hawlucha's moment of inattention, a Mightyena pounced. Alex dragged his body around, pulling the capo with the whip with him, and clubbed the dark type across the muzzle with his free hand. Hierro reached up and slashed through the braided cables of the whip and drove a kick into the capo's abdomen. Alex was pretty sure he heard one or two of her ribs crack.

A faint hissing noise behind them was the only warning the Sins got as the Hammer crashed into the fight, his hydraulic-powered fists lashing out at the heavier pokemon and driving them back from his allies. Siegfried and Albrecht charged behind their trainer, clearing a path through the chaos with quick but powerful strikes. "Well done, Hawlucha Man!" the Hammer roared. "But we'll handle things from here!" The valves in the Hammer's armor hissed as he brought his fist up and slammed it down into the pavement, splintering the concrete and knocking combatants from their feet. As he brought back his other fist, a Machamp jumped in front of it and pushed back against it with all four of its arms. The fighting type strained against the mechanized armor, the veins in its muscles bulging as it tried to hold the Hammer in place. Johannes jerked a lever at the controls, swinging the arm around and hurling the Machamp away, where it was set upon by the Phantom's ghosts.

The clatter of metal on pavement made Alex's head snap up. "Grenades!" he shouted.

"Be not afraid!" A rush of air heralded Archangel's arrival, and he descended from above with his hands outstretched. The air around him rippled as he manipulated the air into a solid wall to repel bullets. The grenades were wrapped in bubbles of psychic force and hurled skyward, where they denoted harmlessly, with their shrapnel turned in on themselves. Newton teleported to his partner's side, throwing up a smaller psychic barrier so that Archangel could prepare another attack.

Archangel raised his right hand in the air and snapped his fingers. Sin enforcers and their pokemon were driven to their knees all around the esper as the force of gravity increased on them tenfold. "You think your boss is strong?" Archangel shouted. "Her party tricks are nothing! This is the power of a _real_ esper!" He swept his hand down, and his irises glowed with an inner light as his blonde curls blew back from his forehead. A wave of force swept out from him, sweeping away his foes like leaves before a gale.

Archangel and Newton jumped straight up, soaring ten feet in the air. With another roar, he summoned a much larger psychic wave that tore through the Sin forces, buying the heroes much-needed time to breathe. The enforcers outside of Archangel's range turned their guns on him, but the bullets were stopped by Newton's psychic walls, which rippled with each impact.

The Hammer seized his opportunity, charging into the stunned ranks of the enemy, his fists flying. Albrecht and Siegfried were just paces behind their trainer, and the three of them rammed through the massed Sin forces and came out swinging on the other side before wheeling around for a second pass. The Cavalier held her Honedge high, and the ghost type's blade glowed like a beacon. "PHANTOM! RONIN! CAP! ON ME!" When the three other heroes fell in alongside her Rapidash, she swept the blade down. "CHARGE!"

"Archangel!" Alex shouted. "How about a boost?" The esper snapped his fingers, and Alex and Hierro were thrown straight up into the air, clear through the cloud of the Phantom's ghosts. At the peak of their arc, Alex spread his wings and made a looping pass to strike out at a shrieking Fletchinder and Pidgeotto. The battlefield below was covered in smoke, punctuated by bursts of light from pokemon attacks. Alex whistled to Hierro and angled downwards, swooping towards a knot where the fighting was thickest. Just before he landed, Alex pulled up and swung around with a spinning roundhouse kick that laid a bat-wielding enforcer flat. His Darmanitan and Krokorok were dispatched by Hierro, and Alex took up position next to Blaziken Man and Volcarona Mask.

"We've got company incoming," Alex said as he swung his batons around. "When I was in the air, I saw Pride, Wrath, Greed and Envy closing in, and they're bringing their entourages."

Blaziken Man slammed his armored fist into a pouncing Druddigon and whirled towards where Alex had gestured. "More incoming? Then we need to wrap up this batch fast." He shot a pulse of fire into the air. "Echo! Time to let loose!"

He was answered by a wailing guitar. "Bring the lightning! _FACE THE THUNDER!_ " Electricity crackled as Forte built up a static charge and lashed out at the mob of pokemon struggling against Echo's wall of sound, and those that retreated out of range from the Exploud's fists were blasted even further back by bursts of pressurized air from the pipes on his body. While his partner bought him some space, Mezzo crouched down and slammed the palms of his hands into the ground and braced himself before unleashing a series of ultrasonic pulses that culminated in a long roar that made Alex's bones vibrate. The concrete beneath their feet trembled as fissures burst open, throwing the melee into further chaos as combatants rushed to escape the earthquake.

"Keep going!" Volcarona Mask screamed, though it was doubtful Mezzo could hear her over the din.

With the earth bucking beneath their feet, the Sins' forces were thrown into disarray as any kind of command structure broke down. The Gunslinger and Geronimo capitalized on the confusion, herding some fighters into clumps to be picked off by his trick bullets, while isolating other targets to be picked off by the Phantom's ghosts, the Dryad's grass types, or the Cavalier.

When Mezzo finally ran out of breath and the quakes stopped, the Sins had been routed, with those still standing driven back into their compound. The Cavalier and the Phantom started to pursue them, but Jiro held up his hand. "Heroes, fall back! Round two is about to get started."

The Cavalier whirled her Rapidash around. "ROUND TWO?"

A mass of black-clothed figures appeared from the smoke, with four of the Sins at the mob's head. Alex and Hierro settled into a ready stance as the other heroes readied their weapons. The Phantom rolled his shoulders and threw off his opera cape. "Leave Wrath to me." He whistled to his ghosts and swept his rapier down. The spectral legion surged forward into the second wave of Sin fighters.

The Dryad sprinted past Alex, leaving a faint aura of cardamom in her wake. An honor guard of three Tsareena raced around her in a loose triangle, and the Iron Legion fell in around them. The Dryad unlooped a corded whip from her waist and flicked it out, wrapping it around Pride's wrist and dragging her into the press. With a quick bit of footwork, the Dryad swept Pride's feet out from beneath her. Pride's Pyroar and Seviper tried to reach their trainer, but the Dryad's pokemon stood in their way.

Pride pushed herself to her feet and drew a curved knife. The Dryad closed the distance between them in a heartbeat, her hands striking pressure points in Pride's arm and forcing the Sin to drop her weapon. The two of them exchanged a serious of lightning-fast blows, parrying and blocking each other's' strikes so that neither could score a decisive blow. "Finally getting your hands dirty?" Pride hissed.

"I'm just doing what I should have done years ago," the Dryad replied, driving her fist into Pride's solar plexus. Pride crumpled into the blow and hacked out a cough.

"I wanted to give you the whole world, Lakshmi. We could have had everything. I could have kept you safe."

"Not like that, Julia. Not for the price I would have had to pay."

Pride shoved herself away from the Dryad. "Fine. If we're settling this, I won't hold back either!"

Alex tried to go to the Dryad's aid, but the tide of combat pushed him away. Crescita and George looped over his head, darting through the seething mass of the Phantom's ghosts while Mezzo and Archangel tore up the ground around him. Hierro vaulted over Alex's shoulders and swung out with a kick at a Mightyena before making the fires around his fists explode. The Hawlucha rocketed up into the air and spun, crashing into a Staraptor and sending the larger bird crashing to the ground.

Volcarona Mask screamed a wordless battle cry as she rushed headlong into Greed, swinging her quarterstaff around and cracking it over the brawny woman's right arm before dancing out of range. Wrath's Incineroar leapt at Volcarona Mask while her back was turned, and Aethon was too preoccupied with keeping Greed's entourage at bay to go to her defense. Alex sprinted forward, tackling the fire type in mid-leap and rolling with it across the ground. The Incineroar snarled and grappled with Alex, pinning him with his claws. Fire burst to life around the Incineroar's jaws, but before it could bite down, Hierro careened out of the sky and slammed into the larger pokemon.

The force of the Hawlucha's attack stunned the Incineroar, giving Alex time to roll to his feet. Hierro chopped the air with one talon, a clear signal to his partner that he could handle this fight alone. The Hawlucha's feathers puffed up as he sprang at the Incineroar again, landing a solid uppercut to the fire type's jaw. Alex ran to Volcarona Mask's aid, swinging down with his stun batons on Greed's back. The woman roared more from indignation than pain, and whirled on Alex, giving Volcarona Mask an opening to kick out her knees.

The two young heroes danced back, and Volcarona Mask grinned. "Gotta be careful. She hits like a truck."

"But that doesn't mean a thing—"

"If she can't hit us in the first place! It's like you're reading my mind, birdbrain!"

"You go left and high, I'll go right and low."

They closed in on Greed again, one feinting in to draw her attention while the other struck from the opposite side. Greed was reputed to be uncannily strong, and her reach was much longer than that of the heroes, but she was most comfortable with a machine gun, and in the chaos she was forced to rely on hand-to-hand combat. Her raw physical power forced Alex and Volcarona Mask to fight cautiously, but for all her strength, she was sorely lacking in speed, and the two heroes capitalized on this weakness.

Alex cranked up his batons to their maximum stun setting, but despite repeated strikes, Greed stubbornly refused to go down. The electric shocks seemed only to enrage her, and though her fighting became clumsier, the force of her strikes grew proportionally. When Alex misjudged and found himself too close to Greed, he was forced to block instead of parrying and evading, and the force of her punch nearly threw him backwards.

Though Greed's breathing was growing labored, she didn't relent in her attacks, and paused only when a sharp whistle cut through the din of battle. Greed's mouth stretched into a chilling grin. "Finally." Envy and a group of his thieves fought their way through a knot of ghosts that had been holding back Sin reinforcements from Alex's fight. Behind them, a pokemon roared and barreled through the ghost types and slid to a stop beside Greed, nuzzling her with a brown-furred snout. The Sin ran a hand through her Ursaring's fur. "I am well, Stepa. I was waiting for you so that we could crush these little bugs together." The Ursaring growled and rose up to it full height, baring its impressive fangs.

Alex cursed under his breath as Greed and Envy advanced. The towering woman glanced down at the slight thief. "How is the new girl?"

Envy glanced aside at one member of his group, a woman in a vulpine wooden mask. "She's earning her keep. Want to step back while we handle the heroes?"

"After I have just done the warming up? It is like you do not know me, Yousef."

Envy smirked and gestured to his Luxray. "Together, then." He palmed his knife and raced forward.

"Now, Aethon!" Volcarona Mask shouted. Her pokemon partner swept down on a blisteringly hot gale, forcing the Sin fighters to stop dead in their tracks. "You think you're the only ones with backup?" she jeered. "Clearly, you don't know the first thing about how we roll!"

With a series of crashes, the Hammer hurtled through the press behind them, breaking through the battle lines. "No matter the odds!" the Hammer roared. "You can always bet on the heroes of Clarus City to turn the fight around!" He slammed one of his fists into the ground in front of Alex, knocking their foes off balance.

Alex saw his opportunity and jumped up onto the Hammer's metal arm and braced himself. "Boost me!" The Hammer barked out a laugh and drew his arm back before launching it forward, propelling Alex through the air. He spread his wingsuit wide and caught an updraft that sent him spiraling up over the chaos. He turned in the air and plummeted, crashing down behind Greed and Envy and dispatching two thieves and a Bisharp. The Hammer and Greed were locked in combat; Greed and seized one of the Hammer's iron fists and was straining against the force of the armor to hold it back, effectively stalling the Hammer in place.

Volcarona Mask sprinted towards Greed's Ursaring and swatted the bear twice across its snout with her quarterstaff. The Ursaring swiped at her with his heavy claws, but the heroine was too swift, jumping back and out of range. "You think you can handle me?" she screamed. "You haven't even seen me _start_ to get serious!" As the Ursaring swung down at her again, she darted around his descending paw and jammed her staff into a crack on the ground, using the leverage to vault into the air. She wrapped her legs around the Ursaring's neck, and the hulking pokemon snarled and snapped at her, but Volcarona Mask hooked her staff under her arms and the Ursaring's neck, freeing her hands to box out the pokemon's ears. The Ursaring bellowed, and Volcarona Mask jumped off him, delivering a snapping kick to the Ursaring's back as she descended.

The pokemon whirled on her again, anger blazing in his eyes. The heroine scoffed. "You'll never take me down!" She dodged around the Ursaring again and hurled two flash grenades into its face, stunning it long enough for her to turn her attention on the Sin fighters trying to flank her. "You can't even _touch_ me!" As a trio of enforcers closed in, she spun her staff around, knocking all three of them down. "I'm Clarus City's strongest hero!" She sprinted at the recovering Ursaring and jumped up, delivering a punishing uppercut to the bear's jaw, snapping the pokemon's jaws closed and knocking it onto its back. " _I'm Volcarona Mask_ , bitch! Don't you forget it!"

She snapped her fingers. "Let 'em have it, Aethon!" Her Volcarona descended, whipping up a searing whirlwind that scattered the Sins' reinforcements and surrounded the heroine in a nimbus of flames.

Greed cried out as her pokemon partner pokemon collapsed, and the lapse in concentration was all the Hammer needed to force her down and pin her beneath one of his metallic hands. His laughter boomed over the chaos of the melee. "Way to go, sparkplug!" he roared as he used his free hand to fend off a Krookodile. Behind him, Siegfried spun heavy concrete clubs with ease, battering away any pokemon that drew close.

Alex found himself locked in an engagement with Envy and three of his thieves. As he ducked and dodged around a hissing Ariados, he locked one of his batons against the hilt of Envy's curved dagger. "I'm surprised they sent you in," Alex grunted as he pushed back against the Sin. "Your technique _still_ sucks." Envy screamed something at him, but Alex paid him no mind. He slipped his wrist behind Envy's guard and dragged the thief off-balance, using Envy's own momentum to throw him into one of his minions. When his Luxray whirled on Alex, the young hero was thrust behind Albrecht's protective bulk, and the Hariyama shoved one massive hand into the electric type's face, thrusting it backwards with contemptuous ease.

The crowd of Sin fighters rippled as the Cavalier charged through, her Honedge's tassel wrapped around her arm and buzzing with pleasure as she cut down any who stood in the way of her armored Rapidash. The attacks and weapons of the Sins' fighters and their pokemon were deflected harmlessly off her suit of soot-stained armor, and it seemed like nothing was capable of stopping her momentum. Captain Unova ran alongside her, a brilliant white light pouring off his body.

George swooped down and shrieked, making the light around Captain Unova flare. His next punch was followed by a powerful shockwave that tore through the Sins' ranks. The Cavalier raised her glowing blade high, and her Rapidash reared up on its hind legs, kicking at the air. "VIXEN!" she boomed. "YOUR RECKONING HAS COME!"

The Kuromori woman in the wooden mask snarled and leapt at the Cavalier, and her Ninetales snapped at the Rapidash's legs. The equine fire type kicked out at the Ninetales, its solid-carbon hooves flashing in the light of its flames. The Vixen's knives clanged against the Cavalier's Honedge, but the Cavalier had the better leverage, and forced the ninja back. When Captain Unova made to run to her aid, the Cavalier waved him off. "STAY BACK! HER KNIVES ARE POISONED!" she shouted. "THE MEREST SCRATCH IS FATAL! BUT SHE CAN DO NOTHING AGAINST _ME_!"

The star-spangled hero instead fell in beside Alex, using his supercharged attacks to give the other hero a little room to breathe. "The fancy stuff, huh?" Alex panted as Captain Unova bounced on the balls of his feet.

"Brycen's moves have nothing on my grandfather's techniques," Captain Unova replied. "I'll pay the price later, if we survive. But the time for holding back is over."

A gigantic Muk bubbled up from the pavement in front of the two heroes, its sludgy fists crashing down where they had been standing just seconds before. George shrieked and prepared to dive out of the sky, but before he could, a spray of incendiary seeds struck the side of the poison type's face. "Stay back, partner!" the Gunslinger shouted from atop a pile of rubble. "Y'all are strong, but that's not going to do much against a varmint like that." He spun out the cylinder of his revolver and slotted three bullets into the chamber. "You just leave it to me." He fired off three shots, and the bullets buried themselves in the Muk's slime. The poison type grunted in surprise, but kept advancing until crystals of ice started to spread along its body, freezing the sludge that made up its form.

The Gunslinger had already reloaded, and fired five bullets into the ice before cycling to the sixth chamber of his gun. The final bullet impacted in the center of the other five, and an electric current coursed through the Muk, which then collapsed with a pained groan. The Gunslinger tipped his hat to the two other heroes before reloading and knocking out three Sin enforcers with his sleeping bullets. "Don't just stand there, partners! This showdown ain't over yet!"

The rattle of machine gun fire made Alex's head snap up. Some of Pride's capos had broken free of the engagement with the Dryad's army of grass types, and were now targeting the Gunslinger and Geronimo. They ducked for cover behind the rubble, firing off potshots when the Sin fighters stopped to reload. The Cavalier growled in disgust and kicked the Vixen away from her. "CAP, CATCH!" She hurled her shield like a discus, and Captain Unova caught it with a grunt. "USE THAT, AND TAKE THEM DOWN!"

Captain Unova slid the shield onto his arm and took off at a sprint towards the gunners, ducking and weaving to present a more difficult target. The bullets rang against the reinforced metal, and soon Captain Unova was on them. He swung out with the shield, using the metal slab to slam into opponents, human and pokemon alike. Shockwaves radiated out from every blow, destabilizing the Sin fighters and leaving them open to the kickboxing hero's attacks. In the disruption, the Gunslinger and Geronimo managed to re-enter the fray, covering Captain Unova as he fought.

"Hawlucha Man!" Captain Unova called. "We've got this under control, but Blaziken Man and Echo are getting overwhelmed." He braced the Cavalier's shield at an angle. "So how about a boost?"

Alex nodded and sprinted towards him. He jumped up onto the shield, and Captain Unova pushed it skyward, boosting it with his extraordinary strength. The energy he expelled manifested in the form of a surge in his brilliant aura, and created a crater in the concrete. Alex shot straight into the sky and saw the chaos laid out below him once again. The Gunslinger, Captain Unova and the Cavalier were surrounded by one knot in the fighting, while the Hammer and Volcarona Mask had carved out a second. Between them, the Dryad's grass types battled against Pride's massed forces, and Alex assumed that the place where the Phantom's ghosts were thickest was where he dueled with Wrath. A cluster of mangled and broken forms, both human and pokemon alike, showed where the Ronin had been. But despite his vantage, Alex couldn't see Hierro in the fighting.

Echo and Blaziken Man were on the crowd's right flank, holding back a second batch of reinforcements with the strength of Echo's sonic booms and Blaziken Man's strafing flames. Alex dove down to meet them, kicking away a Liepard that was creeping towards Mezzo. Echo's Loudred and Exploud looked ragged, but they were holding the line still. Echo sucked in a deep breath and signaled to her pokemon before launching into a screaming chorus.

"We're out of control!

Without any fear of facing the madmen!

Out of control!

Defying the gods of hell!

We are… _OUT OF CONTROL_!"

The sonic wave kept the reinforcements at bay, and Jiro launched a fiery pulse from his gauntlet, creating an explosion in front of the mob as a further deterrent. Masakado used the temporary reprieve to catch his breath before reigniting the feathers around his talons, showing far more fire mastery than Hierro was capable of. Blaziken Man's suit hummed and whirred as the armored hero prepared another explosive blast. His helmet clicked as he cycled through the various lenses. "Scanners say that there's at least another thirty of them inbound," he grunted. "No matter how many we take down, more just keep coming."

The pipes along Forte's body whistled seconds before he unleashed resounding basso roar. Crescita soared overhead and added her own ultrasonic blast to the attack, and the two rippling shockwaves collided some ways distant from the heroes, tearing up the ground between them and the Sins' reinforcements.

A pack of Mightyena bounded over the rubble behind them, and Alex and Mezzo whirled to deal with the dark types. Alex drew his batons and braced himself for combat, but Mezzo called out to him with a bark. He interlaced the fingers of his hands and nodded to Alex to jump in. When the winged hero complied, Mezzo hurled him skyward with a grunt before slamming his palms against the ground and bellowing. The pavement bucked and cracked from the force of Mezzo's shockwaves, sending the pack tumbling into a shallow fissure.

Alex glided down and held out his fist to Mezzo. "Nice trick." The Loudred tapped his fist against Alex and nodded before whirling around and using a burst of sound and air to knock a skittering Ariados away from Echo.

When Alex's ears stopped ringing, he became aware of low buzzing hum that seemed to come from all around. Clusters of Magneton drifted into the air over their heads, and electricity crackled between them as they spiraled in a circle over the heads of the three heroes. Blaziken Man and Masako fired several bursts of flames and red-hot plasma at the steel types, but the Magneton had conjured psychic barriers of hardened light in front of them, and the explosions detonated harmlessly against the shields. Crescita tried to attack the Magneton from behind, but they fired off electric attacks to keep her at bay, driving her back over the main battle. Mezzo and Forte attempted to blast them away, but the Magneton had locked themselves together with electromagnetism, and hardly budged an inch.

A crackling electric orb appeared in the air over their heads, bathing the ground with eerie blue-white light. "N-No way we'll be able t-to get away from th-that," Echo said.

"It was a trap the whole time," Blaziken Man growled, tapping his helmet. Sparks flew from his gauntlet, and Alex could see that the electricity in the air was interfering with his suit's circuitry. Blaziken Man turned on the two young heroes. "This was obviously intended for me. Leave me here. The Magneton may let you slip through." When Alex started to protest, Jiro held up a hand. "Bad enough one hero has to go down here. Don't deprive Clarus City of three."

"A noble sentiment!" someone called. "But hardly necessary!" An invisible force slammed down on three of the Magneton, stunning the steel types and making the circle wobble precariously. There was a crack as an indistinct shape appeared in the air, followed by an ear-piercing shriek. A multi-hued blur plunged down from above and slammed into one of the Magneton, grabbing onto the cluster of steel balls that made up its core and dragging it out of alignment.

Hierro wrenched the Magneton around and jerked on its magnetic protrusions, causing it to fire a blast of electricity into the Magneton to its immediate left. The second Magneton shrieked as it was overloaded with stimuli, and Hierro swung his captured Magneton around again, jumping off it and kicking it into the Magneton to his right, and both steel types careened out of alignment, destabilizing the rest of the array. Newton and Archangel seized the remaining Magneton in a telekinetic hold and swung them around, aiming the supercharged electric attack into the center of the fighting.

Echo signaled to Forte and played a single note on her guitar. "HEROES!" she screamed. "FALL BACK!"

There was a crack, a crash like thunder, and then a heavy reek of ozone as the Magneton released their attack. The lightning exploded out from the center of the broken Magneton circuit, gouging a deep crater in the ground. Humans and pokemon screamed as they were caught up in the blast, their clothing smoldering with the latent heat. The air crackled with static as the burst of electrical power consumed itself in an instant, and the Magneton swarm fell to the ground.

Hierro crashed down next Alex and grinned up at him. Alex stuck out his fist. "Thanks for the save, partner." Hierro tapped his claw against Alex's hand and nodded. The Magneton attack had thrown the center of the melee into chaos, giving the heroes of Clarus City time to pull back to Blaziken Man's position. The Hammer swept aside a crowd of stunned enforcers with the back of one metal hand as Volcarona Mask leapt over his back. The Gunslinger and Geronimo covered the retreat as Captain Unova and the Dryad fought through the crowd. The Cavalier barreled around them, her Rapidash tossing its head and snorting small plumes of fire. Crescita, George, and the Phantom's ghostly legion looped over their heads, while the Dryad's army of grass types fell in around them.

The Ronin appeared at Alex's side, his sword and clothes covered in blood. "Don't worry, kid," the older man grunted. "Not much of it's mine." The shadows wavered, and the Phantom burst from the ground, Gregor just behind him. The Dusknoir's fists were surrounded by dancing purple flames, and his usual spectral buzzing had taken on a sharp pitch.

"I nearly had the bastard," the Phantom growled. "And he slipped away again!"

Archangel drifted down, and the air in front of the heroes rippled as he conjured a psychic barrier. "We won't hold them for long, Jiro. What's our plan?"

Blaziken Man squared his shoulders. "These bastards are just going to keep coming, and we aren't going to be able to hold them forever. We have to cut off the Arbok's head."

"Take out D-Dominion, huh?" Echo said.

"Exactly. Masakado and I are going to bring her down, once and for all. I need the rest of you to keep the Sins' attention here and make her overextend her reinforcements. You only have to hold out a little while longer." When Volcarona Mask and Alex started to object, Jiro shook his head. "I should be able to resist her mind control, at least for a little while. If we bring too many people in, she could turn us against each other. I can't risk any of you falling into her hands."

"But what if you can't resist her?" the Ronin said.

"Dryad and the Hammer know what to do if that happens," Blaziken Man said.

"Better hurry, Jiro," the Hammer said. "Looks like these bastards are going to try their luck!"

Blaziken Man sank into a crouch beside his pokemon partner, and small jets slid out from the legs of his suit. The internal mechanics hummed as he built power, and fire erupted around Masakado's ankles. With a roar, the two of them shot into the air on twin columns of flame, arcing high over the fight and coming down some ways distant, only to bound away again on another fiery contrail.

Echo strummed her guitar and nodded to Forte. "HEROES OF CLARUS CIY!" she screamed. "LET'S ROCK OUT FOR ROUND THREE!"

The heroes roared in response and charged forward to meet the Sin lines. The Hammer led the charge, the hydraulic pistons in his suit whistling as he pushed the armor to its limit. He crashed into their lines and scattered enforcers and capos before him. The Cavalier plunged into combat, her Honedge buzzing gleefully as she cut down any who stood in her way.

Archangel launched Alex and Hierro with a flick of his fingers, and the pair of them soared out over the fighting before angling down towards a pack of Bisharp. Aethon rocketed by overhead, and Volcarona Mask dropped down beside Alex. The young woman screamed as she whipped her quarterstaff around, hurling flashbangs with abandon. Her voice rose and fell in a ululating battle cry, and rage was etched into every line on her face as she plunged into the enemy ranks with no thought of safety.

Alex started to follow her, but the Phantom and Gregor swept past him. "We got this," the other man said as he kicked away a Bisharp. "I've been keeping Izzy safe since we were kids."

The Ronin, Captain Unova, and the Dryad all raced past Alex with their pokemon partners just behind, falling on the Sins in a tide of claws, blades and battering strikes. Echo fought a one-woman rearguard action, using her pokemon to blow sonic bursts into the enemy's flanks while Archangel hurled stragglers into the concussive waves.

"Conceived by the god of thunder

Walking on the earth

Born and raised with northern brethren

Soon he'll rule the world!"

The pavement bucked and seized as Mezzo summoned another earthquake, making several half-finished buildings collapse into rubble. Forte slammed an electrically-charged fist into the ground and created a burst of static energy, paralyzing the flock of Murkrow that tried to dive bomb Echo.

"Master of the sword and axe

Training 'til the day turns dark

Powerful and beautiful

He's gonna face the demon hordes!"

Alex found himself locked in combat with four of Pride's elite cutters. Blood pounded in his ears and adrenaline was firing in his veins. He spared Hierro a quick glance, and his partner's eyes sparkled. The Hawlucha puffed up his feathers and fell on the first cutter with a scream, clawing at their face and kicking in two of their ribs. The cutter's Vigoroth screamed as it charged in towards Alex, but he sidestepped and cracked the normal type upside the head with his baton as it barreled past, running straight into the second cutter and his pair of Krokorok. A Scyther swept down with its twin scythes, and Alex caught them on his batons, straining against the insect's bulk for just a moment as Hierro dispatched his opponent and fell on the Scyther with a fiery punch that knocked it off its feet.

The fourth cutter wrapped a length of chain around her arm and signaled her Nidoking. The hulking poison type tried to grab Hierro, but the nimble flying type ducked under the Nidoking's bulky frame and swept its legs out from underneath it, sending the beast tumbling to the ground. Alex jumped over the Nidoking, taking care to avoid its poisoned spines, and slammed his baton against the metal on the cutter's arm. An electric current passed through the steel, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she took the full force of the charge.

"Bastard son of lightning

Born to kick your ass!

Bastard son of thunder

Living hard and driving fast!"

Alex saw Newton blink into existence in the middle of a cloud of flying type pokemon and snap his fingers. The Kadabra's eyes flashed as gravity intensified, and the entire mob of avian pokemon crashed to the ground. Alex whistled to the psychic type. "Get Archangel for me!" Newton nodded and vanished as quickly as he appeared.

"Bastard son of lightning

Sworn to fight and die!

Bastard son of thunder

To the Cold Halls we will ride! _YEAAAAAAAH!_ "

There was a pop as Archangel appeared at Alex's side. The esper's hair danced around his face at incongruous angles, and with a roll of his shoulders, the psychic hero hurled back all enemies in a fifteen foot radius. "What do you need, Hawlucha Man?"

"The other heroes are handling things here. I need you to get me to Jiro."

"You heard what he said! You can't defend against Dominion—"

"She'll be too focused on Jiro to see me coming. He shouldn't have gone without backup." When Archangel looked torn, Alex persisted. "You know we're strongest when we stand together. We all teamed up because we knew we couldn't face her alone."

The esper nodded. "I don't like going against orders but… you're right. Hang on." He grabbed Alex's hand and signaled to Newton. The Kadabra put one hand on Archangel's wrist and the other on Hierro's back. There was a pop, and Alex felt a rush of wind, and then suddenly he was standing just beyond Echo, clear of the fighting. Archangel took a few paces back and raised his hands. "You two set yourselves. This is going to get you where you need to be, but it probably won't be terribly pleasant." He thrust his left hand out in front of him and drew his right hand back to his ear, like he was pulling on a bow. Alex felt an invisible force seize him around his midsection and pull backwards. "Ready… go!" Archangel shouted, and Alex was flung airborne and forward.

The howling wind stung his eyes and forced his hands to his sides as he and Hierro shot out across the Sins' compound. When the drag lessened, they both spread their wings and caught an updraft, spiraling higher as they approached the far edge of the compound.

Jiro proved easy to locate. Fiery blasts shot out from the empty windows of a half-finished tower. The bottom was a concrete structure that probably made for a passable bunker, but the upper levels were just open scaffolding. Alex signaled to Hierro by waggling his wings, and the pair swooped around the tower, catching another updraft and spiraling up around the structure. They reached the apex of their flight and tucked their wings in, diving through the scaffolding and straight down to the half-completed floor below. At the last second, Alex and Hierro spread their wings, turned in the air, and kicked straight down, breaking through the drywall and insulation of the ceiling below and dropping straight into a brawl.

Alex dodged around a Machoke and delivered three quick punches to pressure points on the fighting type's back, making it stumble forward. Hierro back flipped and kicked the Machoke in the center of its muscular chest, and it crumpled with a groan. The Hawlucha landed and struck his talons together before delivering two fiery punches to a Bisharp. Alex wove around a pair of Gurdurr and struck each of them with his batons before turning on their trainer, shocking the man and kicking him into his comrades.

"What are you doing here?" Jiro barked as he blasted a Machamp with a bolt of fiery plasma.

"Backing you up!" Alex shouted back.

A Weavile darted through the press and lunged at Hierro, Masakado grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and tossed it into a machete-wielding anarchist. The Blaziken glared at the Hawlucha, but Hierro was too preoccupied grappling with a Gabite that had tried to ambush Masakado to notice

Alex fought his way towards Jiro, taking up a position at the armored hero's back. "You brought us all here because you didn't think you could fight Dominion on your own. I get you're trying to do the noble sacrifice thing, but Hierro and I owe you one for helping us. I'm just paying you back, and the others are going to be right behind me." Alex kneed one of Pride's capos in the groin, and when he bent double, the winged hero smashed his forearm into his temple.

"You'd deliver yourselves to Dominion on a silver platter?"

"You did it first. But if you're worried, why don't we just wrap this up before they get here?"

Alex could tell Jiro was grinding his teeth behind his helmet. His armor whirred as he locked hands with an enemy Pangoro and tried to push the hulking pokemon back. Tiny jets of fire burst from the bottom of Jiro's boots and the elbows of his suit, and with a growl he threw the Pangoro through the half-finished wall. "I've trained for months to resist Dominion's mind control. How are you going to protect yourself?"

"I heard from a friend of a friend that you can fight her off if you're enough of a stubborn asshole." Alex ducked and weaved around a trio of Scrafty, toppling one with a low sweeping kick and grabbing a second and tossing it at a snarling Liepard. When the third closed in, he kicked it in the chest. "Hierro, you're up!" The Hawlucha whirled and caught the Scrafty, grabbing it in a lock and kicking it into one of Gluttony's thugs, and the pair went down in a tumble of limbs. Alex grinned at Jiro. "And I'm nothing if not a stubborn asshole."

Jiro shook his head. "All right, Hawlucha Man. We'll do it your way." He flexed the fingers on his right gauntlet, and the reactor on the palm started to hum. "Good thing I do my best work under pressure. Stand back!" He slammed the palm of his hand against the floor and detonated three explosive pulses. The floor collapsed beneath Jiro's feet, and he fell through, descending on a plume of fire from his boots. Masakado and Hierro jumped through the hole, and Alex followed an instant later.

Once he had passed through, Masakado hurled discs of fire up through the gap, deterring any pursuers from following them to the lower floor. Jiro's helmet clicked as he cycled through the various lenses and imagers he had installed. "Thermal scans showed that Dominion and her inner circle were on this level. I was trying to clear out any backup she might have ready to hand." He turned and shot a fire pulse at the top of the door to the access stairs, bringing down a pile of rubble. "That should buy us some time." He nodded to Masakado and Alex. "Let's take Dominion down."

They blasted through the reinforced door of the bunker Dominion had sealed herself in, and were met by a second, smaller crowd of Sin cutters. Lust and Gluttony stood behind the armed fighters, their expressions grim. "Don't let them through!" Gluttony shouted, slapping the flank of her Hippowdon. The ground type charged forward, and Hierro raced to meet it. Jiro launched a series of pulses at a Ferrothorn, and the steel type's spiked tendrils lashed through the air. Masakado stepped in front of Alex and waved his claw in a circular motion, conjuring a wall of light in the air in front of them as the Sin cutters opened fire. The Blaziken held up the protective screen until the Sins had emptied their guns and nodded to Alex before racing into the fray. Alex wove around one of the cutters, knocking the gun from her hands and stunning her with his batons. He kicked away a Mightyena, and when he whirled again, Lust was sweeping down on him with a long, gilded dagger. He paused just long enough for Alex to throw up a baton and block the strike, and pressed his weight against the blade, leaning close to the hero.

"Make it look good," Stocks hissed. "Dominion can't suspe—"

Alex decked him.

Stocks fell to the ground stunned, one hand covering his broken nose. Sure, Stocks had always fed Alex solid information and his help had probably saved many Clarus City civilians from harm. But he was still a member of the Sins, and Alex had wanted to sock the puffed-up bastard since the night they met.

"Just keeping it believable," Alex said with a shrug. Lust groaned and dragged himself away. He wrapped a hand around his Xatu's leg, and the psychic type teleported away.

"Stocks!" Gluttony shrieked. "You coward! You filthy coward!"

"You got your own problems, Mueller!" Alex shouted.

Hierro had taken to the air, looping up around Gluttony's Hippowdon and crashing down on top of its maw, slamming its jaws shut with a kick. The ground type groaned as Hierro's weight forced its head to slam against the ground, and it collapsed with a heavy thud. Gluttony's Honchkrow screamed and sped towards the Hawlucha, but Masakado interceded, slamming an uppercut into the flying type's chest as it dove. The Blaziken pivoted on his heel, fire erupting around his wrists, and he put down four Bisharp with as many punches, then swung out with a roundhouse kick that caught the last two Sin cutters and hurled them out of the bunker.

Jiro stalked forward, the reactor on his palm glowing. "Go, Eva. I'll deal with you later."

Gluttony slumped against the wall of the bunker, ducking her head and accentuating her double chin. "She'll destroy you," Gluttony hissed. "She'll make you burn everything you love, and then she'll _destroy_ you."

"She'll certainly try," Jiro replied evenly. "Now stand aside."

Gluttony staggered out of the bunker's antechamber, chuckling to herself. Jiro glanced at Alex and nodded as they approached the reinforced door to the bunker's inner chamber. "Light it up," Alex said.

Jiro placed his palm against the bunker door and blasted it off its hinges. The warped, smoldering door fell inwards with a shriek of rending metal. Dominion sat within, guarded by four expressionless men in identical suits. Her Gothorita hummed to itself in the corner. The esper herself sat on a lavishly upholstered arm chair, one resting on her temple, the other wrapped around the stem of a martini glass. She placed her drink down on a small table next to her and pursed her lips in an elegant pout. "So you're here. _Finally_." She swept to her feet and sighed. "It's not polite to make a woman wait so long, you know. I was beginning to think you would stand me up."

Jiro kept his shining gauntlet level. "Come quietly, Marinette."

"Oh, I don't think so," Dominion giggled. Her guards had raised their guns, but Dominion lowered her index finger, and all four men holstered their weapons in unison. "I think it's time the two of us had a talk, Jiro Sasaki." Jiro went rigid as Dominion turned her gaze on him, and his gauntlet slowly lowered. The esper laughed again. "Oh, Jiro, you know you're not strong enough to resist me. It's pointless to try." Masakado tried to jump to his trainer's defense, but Dominion flicked her fingers, and the Blaziken's arms snapped to his sides.

"Jiro!" Alex cried, and started towards him.

"Stop," Dominion commanded. Alex's limbs locked in place, and no matter how much he strained, he couldn't get his body to budge. Hierro's eyes went wide, and Alex could only assume he was in the esper's power too. Dominion tutted as she walked towards him. "So you're the Avenbrooke boy? I've heard quite a lot about you from the capos you've embarrassed. But to see you in the flesh…" A shiver ran down Alex's spine, and he felt a strange _pressure_ in the back of his head, a rippling that was almost like fingers running through his brain, sifting through his thoughts and memories. Dominion's eyes took on a faint glow as she rifled through his mind, and she finally gave a derisive sniff. "Why, you're not much after all." She flicked her index and middle fingers, and Alex dropped to his knees with a gasp. "You're hardly even worth my attention."

"You… arrogant… bitch," Alex rasped.

"Oh, don't try to talk tough, Hawlucha Man. What can the weakest hero in Clarus City do against someone like me?"

"It's not true," Jiro hissed. "Don't listen to her, she's just trying to get into your head!"

"I'm already there," Dominion replied. "And I must admit, I'm not terribly impressed. You have to push yourself to your absolute limit just to keep up, Hawlucha Man. You're all but falling apart at the seams. It's not even worth my time to keep you around as a pawn." She snapped her fingers. "Jiro, let's put him out of his misery."

Jiro raised his gauntlet again and pointed it towards Alex. The reactor in the palm began to glow as it gathered a charge. "No!" Jiro cried. "I won't do this! I won't let you strike down the most promising hero we have!" His fingers twitched as he tried to close his fist over the reactor and shut down the charge. Alex strained against Dominion's psychic hold, trying to move just an inch, to twitch a finger, but the esper's will pressed down on him like a tremendous weight.

Dominion's brow furrowed as she turned her attention on Jiro. "I told you already, it's pointless to resist. Now _do as I say_!"

The force of her will pressed down hard enough on Jiro that it left him incapable of speech. A wordless scream of defiance tore from Jiro's throat as he slowly twisted his wrist to point away from Alex. There was a flash as Jiro discharged the pulse into the ground a few feet to Alex's left, and his ragged breathing came out strangely distorted from the speakers in his helmet. "Don't tell me what to do," Jiro hissed.

Dominion turned to face Blaziken Man and lifted her chin to glare into his eyes. "I will _destroy_ you, Jiro. I will make you experience a thousand years of torture in an instant. I will—"

"Shut up."

Dominion whirled on Alex. "What?!"

Blaziken Man clamped down on Dominion's arm. "I think you've said enough."

" _Unhand me_!" Dominion screamed, and Jiro recoiled with a jerky motion. "I'm tired of playing around. I'm ending this n—"

A rumble shook the building. Gunshots and the sound of a commotion filtered through from outside, and crashes could be heard outside the bunker. Dominion snapped her fingers at her guards. "Find out what that is, and take care of it." The men rushed out of the room, and Dominion tried to compose herself. In the brief lapse in her concentration, Alex regained a tiny measure of control, and he slowly wrapped his hand around one of his batons.

Outside of the bunker, he heard the sound of thuds, metal striking metal, a few gunshots, and grunts of pain. One of Dominion's guards was kicked back into the bunker, a deep cut across his chest. Alex managed to turn his head enough to see three figures silhouetted against the doorway of the bunker. A golden halo danced around the head of the figure in front, and he raised one hand in the air.

"Be afraid, Dominion."

He snapped his fingers, and the ceiling groaned as a massive crack split the masonry. Metal screamed and crashed as Archangel tore a massive fissure in the building, letting in the light of the moon from outside, and widening the door to the bunker enough that the Ronin and the Hammer could walk in unimpeded. The Ronin reached down and hauled Alex to his feet.

" _You_ came?" Alex asked.

"I can't take care of Avenbrooke on my own, kid." He held his sword in front of him.

The air around them popped and cracked as Dominion and Archangel engaged in a psychic battle. The Hammer's suit hissed as he guarded Archangel's back, bullets pinging off his armor. "We've got company!" the Hammer called. "And I don't know how long we can hold! What's the play, Jiro?"

"Fall back," Jiro said. "We need to retreat."

"No!" Dominion snapped. "I won't allow it!" She thrust out her hand toward Jiro, and the armored hero tensed up again.

Alex hurled his baton at Dominion, striking her forehead just above her eye. The blow stunned the esper, and she staggered backwards. Jiro whipped around and fired three pulses at Dominion's feet, conjuring a curtain of flames to bisect the bunker. The Ronin tossed a pokeball at the ground to summon his Samurott and threw Alex and Hierro across the water type's back. He slapped Muramasa's flank, and the Samurott charged past the Hammer and Archangel. The Ronin raced at his pokemon's side, his silver hair streaming back from his face as he held his sword in a high guard with both hands.

Jiro engaged the rockets in his boots and shot through the mangled doorway, driving back the Sin reinforcements with a barrage of fire. Masakado ran alongside Muramasa, and the Blaziken had managed to recover Alex's thrown baton. He lashed out at enemy pokemon with fiery kicks and battered them away with the crackling stun baton. The Hammer surged forward and barreled clear through the debris that blocked the building's entrance, and Archangel hurled the rubble into the massed Sin ranks. As they left, they heard Dominion screaming orders to her underlings to stop the heroes by any means necessary.

Echo's wailing guitar shocked Alex back to his senses, and the bellows of the Dryad's grass type heavyweights punctuated the supersonic bursts. The heroes of Clarus had indeed followed Alex, and now maintained a defensive line in front of Dominion's command center, cutting off the main body of the Sin cutters. "Took you long enough," Volcarona Mask quipped to Archangel as the five heroes burst out into the night air. "Eddie and I were about to go in after you."

"Did you get her?" Captain Unova asked.

Jiro shook his head. "Too strong. We need to pull back."

"Damn it," the Gunslinger spat.

"We'll have to take the west exit," the Dryad said. "We'll try to lose them in the Hives."

The Combee Hives were a local name for the complex of luxury high-rise apartment buildings that had sprung up along the waterfront in Ridgewood, not far from the Sins' compound. The recent turmoil in the city had stalled construction, so most of the superstructures had remained as just towering edifices of abandoned cranes, naked steel beams, and scaffolding jutting up against the city's southern skyline. It would be easy enough to get lost in the sprawling construction site and fall back to a safe distance where the heroes could resume their civilian identities and slip back into the shadows.

Jiro nodded. "And we need to go fast. Dominion will get out of there before long, and we need to be gone before that happens."

The Phantom snapped his fingers, and two Haunter drifted down to hover next to him. "Cornelius, Erasmus, gather the swarm and cover our retreat. Have Titus and the reserves ready to fall back to our position in case things get bad, and tell Echo we're about to retreat." When the Haunter shot off, he turned to the Dryad. "Should we use the Rose and Iron Legions to keep them off our flanks?" The Dryad nodded, and set about commanding her grass types.

The heroes prepared themselves for their desperate flight, and the Ronin put a hand on Alex's shoulder. "You all right, kid? Muramasa can carry you if you need to."

Alex shook his head. "I'm fine. I'm not hurt. Just a little rattled."

"Understandable."

"Fall in!" Jiro barked. "We stay together, and only fight if we have to. Go, go, go!"

They took off over the ravaged ground of the Sin compound, Jiro and the Hammer in the lead to clear a path. The Sin reserve force charged after them with a collective roar, only to be set upon by the Phantom's ghosts. Forte, bringing up the rear of the column, slid and turned around, blasting their pursuers with a powerful sonic boom, scattering the front ranks. Hierro sprinted up to the top of a rubble pile and launched himself into the air, looping over Alex's head to protect his human partner. Aethon, Crescita and George flitted in the sky above the heroes, torn between fleeing with their human partners and falling back to guard the retreat.

The rattle of gunfire echoed behind them, and Archangel shot up and turned in midair, throwing up a rippling psychic barrier. "That won't hold for long!" he shouted. Whenever he could, the Gunslinger and Geronimo spun to launch potshots into the Sin ranks, but the Nuzleaf was growing tired, and the Gunslinger was nearly out of bullets. The Cavalier galloped in loops around the column of ragged heroes, jeering at the Sins over her shoulder and charging off to stop any who managed to break through the rearguard.

After several minutes of hard sprinting, they reached the barbed wire fence that surrounded the Sins' compound, and the Hammer wrenched it down with one yank of his suit's hydraulic arm. He waved the rest of the heroes through before tossing the length of torn barbed wire behind them as a further impediment to their pursuers.

When they reached the first of the Hives, Volcarona Mask whistled to Jiro. "Do we stay close or split?"

"Stay," Jiro replied. "If we have to make a stand, we're better off doing it together."

They slowed their pace as they crossed the site, and the Dryad dispersed her grass types into a wider perimeter. They crept from shadow to shadow, and heard the Sin force closing in behind them. After their earlier exertions, Alex doubted they would be able to get away quickly enough if they were ambushed.

The cool breeze off the ocean lifted Hierro higher, and the Hawlucha abruptly dove down and signaled to Alex. "We've got company," Alex groaned.

The Ronin and the Cavalier stepped forward, their blades raised. Jiro strode up behind them and raised his gauntlet, firing a warning shot into the darkness. A crazed laugh rose up from the resulting cloud of smoke, and shadowy figures resolved themselves from the murk. Wrath, Envy and Greed limped at the head of the Sin column, and Pride supported Dominion's weight just behind them. All of them looked just as ragged as the heroes, but they seemed determined to keep up their dogged pursuit.

Dominion pulled her lips back in a sneer. "No more games! Destroy them!"

Wrath pulled the pin on an incendiary grenade and hurled it towards the heroes, but the Hammer moved just as quickly, seizing an abandoned backhoe in one metal fist and tossing it towards the grenade. The machine exploded, temporarily cutting off the Sins from the heroes. "Run!" the Hammer barked.

A rumble shook the ground as the heroes ran, and the water in the harbor began to seethe as something stirred beneath the surface. With a roar, two towering Gyarados burst from the inky black water and dragged their coils up onto the embankment. They opened their fanged maws wide, and a brilliant light appeared in their mouths. When they launched the beams of concentrated energy, Archangel sprang forward on a telekinetic pulse and threw his hands out before him, hardening the air over the heroes with his will.

A scream tore from his throat as he pushed back against the hyper beams, and cracks began to appear in the psychic barrier. "Get out of the way!" he screamed to his companions. "I can't hold it!" Just before the barrier broke, he swung his hands to the side, warping the air and redirecting the beam back towards the Sins, scorching a long black line across the ground. The esper sagged and plummeted from the sky, and Captain Unova raced to catch him before he hit the ground.

Archangel had bought them a precious moment, and the Gyarados moved sluggishly as they dropped back into the harbor to pursue the heroes from the water. The Hammer sprinted to the head of their ragged formation and pointed to a nearby crane. "Jiro! Upper right support beam!"

Blaziken Man nodded and shot a superheated pulse at the scaffolding's base, melting through the metal and causing the towering crane to groan. The Hammer broke off from the group and slammed both of his fists into a second bit of scaffolding, and the crane began to tip ponderously over. The Sins hung back as all twelve stories of it came crashing down.

The heroes put as much distance between themselves and their pursuers as they could, but they didn't get far until fatigue forced them to stop in the shadow of one of the Hives. Most of them were worn out from fighting, and their breaths came in ragged gasps. Air whistled through Forte's pipes as the Exploud struggled for breath, and the Gunslinger leaned over to vomit from exertion.

"We can't fight them all," the Dryad said, admitting what they all were thinking.

"WE LOST OUR SHOT AT DOMINION," the Cavalier added. "WE DEALT THEM A HEAVY BLOW, BUT NOT A MORTAL ONE."

"If a few of us stay here and hold them off, the rest can get away," Captain Unova said. "It would cost our lives, but enough of us could live to fight another day."

"I'll stay." Jiro squared his shoulders. "It was my hubris that got us here in the first place, and it's my job to bear the costs."

"YOU HAVE MY SWORD, JIRO," the Cavalier said. "I CAN TAKE A FEW OF THEM WITH ME WHEN I GO TO MEET MY MAKER."

"Me too." The Ronin turned his head to the side and spat. "This isn't a bad way to go."

"No."

They all turned to the Hammer. The older man's suit hissed as he clenched his fists. "All of you will go. If it's come to this, then it's for the best that Clarus City only loses one of its heroes. One who doesn't have much longer anyway." His eyes hardened as he dared any of them to defy him. "This city needs all of you, and I'm the only one strong enough to stop them in their tracks long enough for you to get away." His beard quirked up as he tried to force a smile. "I mean it, Jiro. For once, you can respect your elders enough to grant me my last request without arguing about it."

The Ronin and the Cavalier nodded to Johannes, respecting the old hero's choice to die on his own terms. The Cavalier pounded one fist over her heart and turned her Rapidash away, and the Ronin snapped off a salute as he melted into the shadows. After a moment's hesitation, the Gunslinger and Captain Unova followed them and disappeared further into the Hives. When Jiro stepped forward to say something, the Dryad wiped her tears from her eyes, took him by the arm, and dragged him away.

Volcarona Mask shook her head. "Don't make me lose you too." Alex could hear her voice breaking. "You can't, Johannes."

The Hammer inclined his head to the five young heroes of Clarus City. "It's going to be all right."

"N-No!" Echo cried. "How is th-this all r-right? We c-can't just l-leave you! How c-can w-we c-call ourselves heroes if we do?"

"By making me proud. By defending this city when I can't anymore." His suit hissed as he started to turn.

"But you were going to train us," Alex said. "Without you, how can we do that?"

Johannes managed to smile for real. "Alex, you were _already_ a great hero. There's nothing more for me to teach you. I've been proud of you since the first day we met." Alex raised a hand to his mouth to choke off a sob, and Hierro took his hand. Johannes turned to Echo. "You too, Ingrid. You were already my star pupil, so now it's time for you to be a star."

Volcarona Mask was weeping openly now. "I wouldn't be who I am without you. After my parents… I can't do it again!"

"Isabelle, I'm sorry. I wanted to see this through to the end, but… I'm sorry. Your parents would have been so proud of the woman you've become. And Edgar," Johannes inclined his head. "You're ten times the man your father ever was. He might never have approved of you, but know that I did."

He turned at last to Archangel. "Joshua, I'm counting on you to keep all of them safe, and keep them _united_. Dominion is strong, but she's nothing compared to you. If you stand together, I know she'll never be able to win." Archangel nodded and place his hand over his heart. The Hammer smiled and turned away. "Now go, all of you. I can hold them, but not for long."

"No!" Volcarona Mask cried, and tried to run forward. Gregor's hand shot out and grabbed her arm, and though the young woman strained against the Dusknoir's grip, she couldn't break free. The ghost type loomed up behind the Phantom and pulled Volcarona Mask and Echo into his spectral embrace, opening up a yawning black void that consumed Mezzo, Forte and Aethon.

Tears stained the Phantom's mask as he and the two female heroes disappeared into the darkness. "I'll look after them," he said, just before he vanished.

"Good lad," the Hammer rumbled.

Alex felt Joshua take his hand. "Goodbye, Johannes."

" _Auf wiedersehen_ ," he replied.

The wind suddenly howled in Alex's ears as Newton placed his hand on Joshua's shoulder, whisking them away.

Johannes watched them disappear and wiped away his own tears. They were all so young. He wished he could have had just a bit more time.

He squared his shoulders and gestured to Siegfried and Albrecht, crouching nearby. "You two don't have to stay, you know." The Conkledurr and Hariyama shook their heads and shuffled over to stand with their trainer, one last time. "That's my boys."

He pointed to the concrete support pylons that made up the Hive's foundation. "We're going to weaken those, and then we're going to wait until Dominion brings the party to us."

They didn't have long to wait. They heard the Sin mob well before it came into view. The tramp of their feet, the baying howls of their pokemon, and the rasp of the Gyarados' scales along the ground almost drowned out the sound of the Hammer's heart beating in his ears. Dominion limped to the front of the procession and folded her arms. "So they abandoned you here?" she jeered.

"If you want them, you'll have to go through me."

"Just one old man? I'm quaking in my boots."

"You should be," the Hammer said, mostly to himself. Then, louder, "I don't have all night, you psychic bitch! If you're coming, then _bring it on_!"

Dominion laughed and snapped her fingers. Her ragged army raced forward, and some of Wrath's anarchists howled along with their pokemon. They had been bloodied and bruised, same as the heroes, and now they would get to exact their price in blood.

Or so they thought.

"Let them come," Johannes muttered. He slowly stepped back into the darkness of the half-completed Hive, to the center support beam. When most of the Sins were in the building's shadow, the Hammer raised his voice again. "Dominion! If you have your sights set on this city, then it's time I taught you a very important lesson!" He slammed both of his massive steel fists into the central pylon of the Hive, reducing it to a pile of dust and rubble. The Hive groaned and began listing forward, hundreds of tons of steel and concrete caught in gravity's hold. The building screamed and roared as it collapsed around him, but the Hammer bellowed as loud as he could to make sure Dominion heard.

" _ALWAYS BET ON THE HEROES OF CLARUS CITY!"_

Some distance away, just beyond the Hives, the five young heroes of Clarus saw the building come down. Isabelle fought against Edgar, trying to run back the way they came. "JOHANNES!"

"No," Ingrid whispered, sinking to her knees. "No, no, no."

Alex slumped against the wall of a warehouse and watched as the collapse triggered a chain reaction, bringing down two of the nearby buildings as well. He felt something inside him, a sharp pain in his chest. Another sob forced its way out, and Hierro buried his face in Alex's chest. Alex held the shaking Hawlucha close, and realized that he was trembling too.

"She's not dead," Joshua whispered. "After all that, and she's still not dead?"

"You can tell?" Edgar asked. The esper just nodded, incapable of saying anything more. Edgar took a deep breath. "Then the real war starts now. Dominion may be alive, and for all we know, the rest of the top brass could be too. We might have weakened them, but they'll come back spitting mad."

Alex managed to nod, but couldn't say anything more. As he watched the cloud of dust from the Hives' collapse rise up to obscure the moon, he knew what all of them were thinking. Clarus City's strongest hero, the greatest of all of them, was dead.

Without him, what chance did the rest of them have?


	29. Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

A citywide day of mourning was declared when the news broke.

A gleaming chrome coffin lay in state in the atrium of city hall for two days, and the line of people coming to pay respects to the city's fallen hero never ebbed. A heavy police presence around the wake deterred the Sins from exacting any kind of retribution or counterattack.

The coffin was closed, naturally.

Alex never found out how much of Johannes the crews sent to sift through the wreckage had found, or if they could identify any of his remains at all. From the sound of things, when Johannes had brought down the Hive, he had brought most of the Sins' vanguard down with him. That, coupled with the losses that Clarus City's less scrupulous heroes had inflicted on their ranks and the damage the rest of them had done, the remaining Sin operatives had gone deep underground. A hasty note from Stocks left in one of his dead drops confirmed that the rest of the Sin leadership had survived, though they had all taken injuries and were content to lick their wounds for now.

The heroes had agreed amongst themselves that it would be safest for them to avoid Johannes's funeral, except for those of their number who were notable public figures whose absence would draw more attention than otherwise. Alex joined the crowds that thronged around city hall to pay respects to the Hammer during the state viewing, and only had a few seconds in front of the shining coffin before the press of the crowd behind him forced him along. As he emerged from city hall blinking tears from his eyes, he saw Ingrid wandering listlessly around the plaza. Their eyes met for a moment, but they both turned away without saying anything. They couldn't know who was watching, and they wanted to be alone with their grief anyway.

When the funeral rolled around two days later, Alex and Hierro watched the live stream on Alex's laptop from the roof of their apartment building. The early autumn sun was bright, and the cheery weather only darkened Alex's mood. Ever since he became Hawlucha Man, Alex had eschewed alcohol, but as he watched the mourners file into St. Dunstan's cathedral, he broke the seal on a bottle of the cheapest vodka he could find and took a long pull, coughing and gasping as it burned his throat on the way down.

Hierro had curled up, his shoulders hunched and his feathered crest limp. Alex reached out a hand and slowly ran it through his partner's plumage, losing himself in the repetitive motion of smoothing Hierro's feathers. The Hawlucha leaned into the touch, and the two of them sat in silence as the funeral service began. The camera panned across the crowd, and Alex got occasional glimpses of Isabelle, Edgar, Lakshmi and Jiro. Edgar kept his face carefully impassive, but there was a haunted look about his features, a new darkness in his eyes, a kind of defeat that was in stark contrast to the avenging fire that took hold of him whenever he talked about the loss of his parents. Lakshmi sat several rows back from the front, nearly anonymous in her black gown and veil that was such a drastic departure from her usual vibrant outfits. Isabelle stared resolutely ahead, and though Alex could see that the makeup around her eyes had smudged, her hands gripped the bench of her pew with white-knuckled intensity.

After the president of the Avenbrooke Institute of Technology gave a speech praising Johannes for his achievements in aerospace engineering and his contributions to the space elevator, Jiro limped up to the pulpit to deliver his eulogy. His features were drawn and sunken, and he seemed to be struggling under a gigantic weight. Though his beard was neatly trimmed as usual, there was an unkempt quality about it, and his eyes looked haunted. Alex took a pull from his bottle at the thought of Clarus City's heroes being reduced to this, and once he caught his breath and got the burn to subside a bit, he took a second swig for good measure.

Jiro struggled through the eulogy, extolling Johannes's virtues as a man and as a hero in fits and starts, trailing off frequently as he was overcome with emotion. Finally, in mid-sentence, Jiro finally broke. "I'm sorry. I can't do this." He crossed the altar and laid the palm of his hand on Johannes's coffin. "I'm so sorry, my friend. You deserved better than me."

The image of Jiro Sasaki weeping over the coffin would be on the front page of every newspaper in the city the next morning.

When the pallbearers took up the coffin and the mourners began to file out, Alex closed his laptop and tried to get to his feet. Hierro had to jump up and help him regain his balance as he staggered drunkenly towards the stairs. Alex glanced down at the bottle in his right hand and realized half of it was gone. Together, he and Hierro made their way down to his apartment, and Alex sagged onto the couch, while Hierro took up his usual perch on the back of the armchair. Alex set the bottle of vodka on the table for a moment before picking it back up again. There wasn't much else to do now but finish it.

Alex and Hierro sat there for the rest of the day, watching as the shadows in the apartment lengthened. Finally, when the streetlight outside flickered on, Alex tried to stir himself, but his head was so fogged with drink that he just let himself sink back further into the couch.

The city could look after itself tonight. Its heroes had done enough.

A few days after the funeral, when the crowds had thinned out, Alex and Hierro made their way up to Origin Gate cemetery way uptown. It took three subway transfers and most of the morning, but the time passed like a blur to Alex. He was still in a state of mild shock, but after Johannes's funeral, he had managed to keep himself out of his cups again.

The plot wasn't hard to find; it was covered in a mound of flowers, wreathes, and written prayers. The name, dates, and epitaph were completely covered by the pile, and loose petals littered the ground nearby. A small brass bowl atop the headstone was full of smoldering incense sticks, and the fragrances mingled with the scent of the flowers into something cloyingly sweet. Alex tugged up the hood of his sweatshirt and produced two candles from his backpack, one black and one white. Johannes hadn't been a Unovan, but Alex figured he would appreciate the gesture.

He set the two candles on either side of the incense dish and lit them with a cheap lighter from the bodega near his apartment. Hierro reached out and took his hand, and the two of them stood before the stone with their heads bowed for a time.

The hood of his sweatshirt was deep and cut off his peripheral vision, but when he felt Hierro squeeze his hand, he glanced to the side. Isabelle stood beside them, with the collar of her thin black coat turned up to cover the lower half of her face. The slight breeze whipped her hair around her head, and her eyes were distant.

When she finally noticed Alex looking at her, she jerked her head to the side. "Mom and Dad are buried over there."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

They stood in silence for a while longer, and finally Isabelle sighed. "The first time I came here, after the funeral, he was with me. I probably couldn't have faced their graves again if he hadn't been there." Though her mouth was hidden, lines around Isabelle's eyes shifted as she smiled. Tears sparkled in her eyes. "He bought me a lemonade afterwards. Something sweet to balance the bitter, he said." She sniffed. "If it hadn't been for him, I probably would have turned out like Eddie."

"Vengeful and angry?"

"I was going to say a fucking moron, but sure."

They shared a smile at that, and Alex let go of Hierro's hand to stroke his partner's crest. "He was the best out of all of us," Alex said. "The strongest, the bravest, the most… heroic. What are we going to do without him?"

"Our best," Isabelle replied. "He told us to make him proud, so I'm gonna do it." She dashed the tears from her eyes. "I'm gonna punch Dominion's goddamn teeth in, that's what I'm gonna do."

Alex cringed. "Iz, she's something else. When I went up against her I… I couldn't do anything. All she had to do was look my way and I was out of the fight. If Johannes and the others hadn't shown up when they did, I—"

"I'm the heir to a trillion dollar company, birdbrain. I've been trained to resist an esper getting in my head since I could talk. Jiro might not have been able to hack it, but I'm _way_ better at it than he is." Her hands curled into fists. "He should have brought me along. Things might have been different if I was there. If I just could have…" Isabelle sighed and scuffed her designer shoes in the graveyard soil. "That's the problem we have, isn't it? To do the kind of stuff we do, to be the kind of person we are, you kind of have to be an arrogant asshole, don't you? To look at every problem you see and say, 'Yeah, it's my job to fix that,' and every time something goes wrong to say, 'That was all my fault.' Don't you ever feel that way?"

Alex thought it over for a minute. "I guess?"

"Jiro's got it the worst of us, I think. Being the first one, he feels like he's responsible for the rest of us, that he has to be this paragon. If something happens to us, it's his fault for not protecting us. That's why he needed to fight Dominion alone, even after he made a big deal about us all coming together." She jammed her hands into her coat pockets. "No one's seen him since the funeral. Complete and total isolation. He's not seeing me, or Lakshmi, or even the Takedas. He thinks it's all on him, even though Johannes chose this." Isabelle sighed. "I've never seen him like this before."

"We've all been hit pretty hard. Maybe he just needs some time?"

"This is the first time Jiro's lost." At Alex's puzzled look, Isabelle clarified. "Jiro's _never_ lost. Every fight he's been in, every bad guy he's gone up against, he's won in the end. So first Dominion had him dead to rights, and then he loses Johannes? He doesn't know how to process it, let alone how to cope." She shrugged. "Have you seen any of the others?"

"Just Ingrid, and only for a few seconds at the wake."

"Eddie says she's taking it really hard. I'll let him try and take care of her before I step in. Greenpoint sticks together, or whatever. Eddie bought the fallen Hives, by the way. When the contractors and developers started hemming and hawing about the damage, Harcourt Limited scooped up the property and took it off their hands. He mentioned cleaning it up and putting up some affordable housing or whatever. Opportunities for local business too."

"That's surprisingly noble."

"You're tellin' me. He's going to lose a bunch of money on it. Archangel's gone into seclusion, but he'll be okay. Just has to even out his psychic vibrations or whatever. Lakshmi's doing some hardcore gardening to process this stuff, but she'll pull through. I've got no idea how the Ridgewood guys or the Ronin are holding up, though."

"The Ronin's handling things like he usually does," Alex replied. "The Eleventh found the bodies of six Sin operatives in the last three days. I hear Captain Unova's been pulling double patrols." When Isabelle rolled her eyes, Alex shrugged. "He's really not a bad guy when you get to know him." Hierro chirped in agreement. "What about you? You seem to be doing suspiciously well."

"I'm compartmentalizing," Isabelle said. "I compartmentalize like a fucking champ. I got the initial shock out of my system at the funeral, and I'm probably going to have a nervous breakdown and throw a fit in a couple weeks when I can't bottle this up anymore. I'll, I don't know, smash some priceless fucking pottery my great-great-grandfather bought and get it out of my system." She ignored Alex's concerned look and squared her shoulders. "But until then? I'm stepping up to do what Johannes would have done. He and Jiro trained me to be the best, the hope of Clarus City, so that's what I'm going to be."

"You can talk to us, you know. Hierro and I." Hierro crossed behind Alex and took Isabelle's hand. "We can go find a billboard to sit on and chat, maybe beat up some bad guys if it makes you feel better. Johannes trained Ingrid and I to help take some of the burden off of you."

Isabelle smoothed Hierro's feathers before reaching over the Hawlucha's head to sock Alex's arm. "Played you like a fiddle, huh?"

"What?"

She grinned. "It wasn't even hard! I figured you'd be all mopey and down on yourself, but the second you heard that I was taking it harder than you, you'd put your funk aside and help pick me up. It's a win-win; I get to vent for a few minutes and you get your do-gooder mojo back."

"How did you know I was going to be here?"

"I gave the guy at the bodega on your corner two hundred bucks to send me a message if you went into the subway. I figured you'd come here before anything else."

"You're really something, Iz."

"A freakin' masterpiece, I know." When Alex gave her a wan smile and rolled his eyes she socked his arm again. "See, that's what Johannes would have wanted. I'm sure if we dug him up right now, he'd be rolling in his grave from all of this moaning and groaning we're doing over him." She sighed. "He'd say some clichéd crap about how we've gotta keep moving forward and never give in to despair, and as corny as it would sound, it would work."

"Figures that the one hero we can't afford to lose is the first one to fall." Alex watched the two flickering flames atop Johannes's tombstone. "The last thing he said to me was that he was proud of me, that I was a great hero and that I had his respect. He couldn't have known, but that was exactly what I needed to hear right then."

"Of course he knew. He was Johannes."

"Are you sure you're ready to be the hope of Clarus City?"

"No, but who is when it comes to stuff like this?" Isabelle stared off into the middle distance, but some of her color was coming back. "With Johannes gone and Jiro out of the equation, someone needs to step up. Once Dominion dusts herself off, she's going to be spitting mad, and Archangel thinks if we don't do something about it, she's going to have a hissy fit and do her best to level the city. We need someone who's going to carry on the torch and lead from the front, and I'm the best we've got. I'm not like Jiro, and I know I can't do this all on my own. I'll be counting on the rest of you all to back me up." She raised an eyebrow. "Speaking of which, this weekend you're going to come to mansion and spar with me. We can't have you getting rusty. I need a strong number two to back me up."

"I'm nobody's sidekick, Iz."

"I think Hierro might beg to differ." She crouched down next to the Hawlucha. "You're the one doing all the heavy lifting around here, aren't you?" Hierro puffed out his feathers and preened. Isabelle straightened with a grunt. "But I'm not talking about a sidekick, birdbrain. I mean I need someone I can count on watching my back when this all boils over. Johannes was right, at the end of the day, you're a damn fine hero. You're no Volcarona Mask, but…"

"You know, Jiro was a lot better at this sort of thing."

"Well, he had years of practice. Just one more thing I have to catch up on."

Alex took his hand out of the pocket of his hoodie and held out his fist to Isabelle. "You're a pain in my ass, but I'll always have your back."

"Hell yeah!" They went through the motions of the elaborate handshake she had designed for them, culminating in a fist bump. "We're going to kick so many asses, birdbrain, you have no idea."

Alex blew out the candles on Johannes grave and laid his hand on the headstone for one final goodbye. When he looked up, he managed to crack a smile. "Thanks, Iz."

"Anytime, dude. You want to grab a lemonade?"


	30. Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

Salvatore idly bounced a tennis ball against the cell door, angling it so that it bounced over to Viktor on the lower bunk on the opposite side of the cell. The steady _thud-thump, thud-thump_ had a hypnotic effect, and he could pass hours this way, lulled into a trance by the repetitive motions. Gian sat on the top bunk above Viktor, idly paging through a cheap murder mystery paperback from the prison library.

Even if Sal wasn't necessarily happy to be locked up in Redstone, he was at least not unhappy about the arrangement. Sin operatives enjoyed certain privileges and protections within the compound, both from other prisoners and the guards on the Sins' payroll. After word came from the mainland that Dominion had subsumed the Kuromori into her organization, some of the inter-faction tensions within the prison had abated, and the Baron's incarcerated men, finding themselves suddenly outnumbered, were content to do what they could to keep their noses down.

That news had come on the heels of the Purge, and just days later, they had heard about the heroes' assault on the Ridgewood compound, and Sal was forced to admit being in Redstone was probably a blessing in disguise. While he probably had nothing to worry about in the Purge, the higher-ups might have banked on his loyalty to do some of the unpleasant work he had heard about, and while he probably would have followed his orders, Sal never liked the idea of turning on his own. And even if he'd weathered the Purge, he had no doubt that he and Gian would have found themselves on the front lines when the heroes attacked, and even though Gian could have made it out of that all right, Sal would probably be dead.

With the city looking more like a warzone, being locked up was a price he was willing to pay to keep his head on his shoulders. It was no luxury hotel, but Sal had to admit that Redstone prison might have been the best thing to happen to him in years.

Sal wasn't sure who had pulled the strings to get him a cell with Gian, but he appreciated the gesture. How Viktor ended up with them, Sal wasn't sure, but he figured whoever filed the paperwork figured that since they were in the same crew when they were arrested, he and Gian knew the guy. The bruiser wasn't much of a conversationalist, but when a fracas started in the prison yard when news of the Purge reached Redstone, Viktor had immediately moved to back up Sal and Gian, and Sal could appreciate that in a man, even if he was a cheat at cards.

The _thud-thump_ of his game of catch was interrupted by the steady _thunk_ of a guard's nightstick on the cell doors as he made his rounds. As far as Sal could tell, this guy wasn't on the dole of any of the major factions, and did what he could to introduce just a little bit of discomfort into the prisoners' daily lives. The tapping the doors was just one of his games.

Sal felt a prickling on the back of his scalp as the _thunk_ came closer to his door, and Viktor fumbled his throw, making the ball come in at an odd angle. The guard's Hypno shuffled along in front of him, generating a weak psychic pulse from the hallway along the cellblock. It was just enough to be a mild irritant, and any prisoner dozing off in his cell would be abruptly woken up by it. Gian's brow furrowed as he focused on the page in front of him, the psychic interference ruining his concentration. "One of these days," Viktor grumbled in his heavily accented voice, popping the knuckles on his right hand. "One of these days, I will punch that man in his mouth."

"Easy big guy," Sal said as he swung off his bunk and retrieved the ball. "He just wants to get a rise out of you. We aren't giving him the satisfaction."

"Four more years of this," Viktor muttered.

"Three maybe, if we behave ourselves," Gian replied.

"Going to be a long three years."

"Yeah, but at least by the end of it, the three of us will probably still be breathing," Sal said. "At the rate things are going on the outside, I don't know how many of our guys can say the same."

Viktor sighed and lay back on his bunk, staring at the underside of Gian's mattress. "I am not liking this," he finally said. "I don't know which of my friends died and who was hurt. I am not liking that Dominion sends them to their deaths. Mostly I am wondering what would have happened if Tolya and I had been there. I am missing him more than usual today."

At the mention of Viktor's Electabuzz, Sal's thoughts turned to Vito. The Skarmory was in PPS custody now, but Sal knew his partner was savvy enough not to make a fuss. Pokemon like that, sometimes the PPS rehomed them, or sent them to a ranch outside the city. Vito was getting up there in age, and Sal knew he would have had to retire him soon anyway. He heard of plenty of guys who tracked down their pokemon once they got out of Redstone, using bribes or underworld contacts to get their partners back from the PPS if they had to. Sal knew he would go looking for Vito once he got out, but if the Skarmory had a better deal now than he had with Sal, he wasn't sure he'd try to get his pokemon back.

He liked to think that Vito was out of the city, somewhere with a nice big field to fly over and plenty of warm air currents to cruise on. It was the kind of retirement Vito deserved after putting up with Sal for so long, and if Sal were to try and take him away from that, then what kind of friend was he?

If he was honest with himself, he was thinking about retiring himself. He'd been a criminal for most of his life, and seen bosses rise and fall. It wasn't an old man's game, and he wasn't young anymore. With the espers and heroes vying for control of the city and duking it out in the streets, a guy who's been around long enough should know when the game had changed, and when to call it quits. After his stint in Redstone, he was thinking it might be nice to quietly slip away and start over somewhere far from Clarus City. It wasn't easy to make a life as an ex-con, but it was possible.

The light coming in from the small window in the cell door abruptly dimmed, signaling that lights out was soon. Gian marked his place with a scrap of paper and tossed his book down to Sal, who set it on the cell's tiny, immovable table. The three men reclined on their bunks, waiting in silence for the lights to turn off. Sal's body had already recalibrated to the prison routine, and despite the hard, shapeless mattress, he usually fell asleep fairly quickly after lights out.

But tonight, not long after the florescent tube over his head dimmed and went out, a crash from outside the prison made Sal snap up, suddenly completely alert. Sirens rang outside the prison walls, and harsh red lights flicked on in the hallway outside as Sal heard backup locks engage on the cell door, plunging Redstone into lockdown. In the hall outside, he heard guards shouting and pokemon yapping and howling. Gian swung off his bunk and peered out the tiny window in the door, but after a moment, he shook his head.

"I can't see anything. Whatever's going on, it's not in here." He sat down next to Sal, and Viktor sat up on his bunk. The three of them sat in silence as they strained to hear sounds from outside, but the concrete walls of the prison were thick, and dampened even the wailing alarms. Sal faintly heard crashes and what sounded like a deep basso roar, accompanied by the sharp cracks of gunfire.

Prisoners in other cells shouted and pounded on their doors, and Sal wanted to yell at them all to shut up so he could try to figure out what was going on, but he knew he'd never be heard over the ruckus. He couldn't be sure, but the sounds of gunfire seemed closer now, the sharp cries of pokemon echoed from somewhere outside the cellblock.

Then, as abruptly as it began, the commotion stopped. The prisoners quieted as they all tried to figure out what was going on. Viktor moved to stand up, but Sal held up his hand. If the guards came back, he wanted the three of them to be sitting calmly in their cell, and give them no reason to think they had stepped out of line. Down the cellblock, he heard a crash, like something heavy impacting one of the doors, and a pokemon's growl. Another door slammed open, and an indistinct conversation could be heard.

Gian's fingers twitched, curling around an invisible sword hilt. Sal's cousin hadn't yet lost the muscle memory of reaching for Dantès, and Gian did so every time his finely-honed street brawling instincts set him on edge.

Something banged against the metal of their cell door, impacting it hard enough to leave a crater. Three more bangs followed, and then there was a shriek of rending metal as the door was torn from its hinges and hurled away by a psychic force.

A man with an eye patch stood beside a slowly rotating Claydol, holding a clipboard in one hand. "Genovese?"

So much for retirement.

"That's me," Sal said.

"What?" The man glanced up and scowled. His one-eyed gaze flicked from Sal to Gian, and then back. "Oh, the cousin. Yeah, you might as well come too. And you, big guy. Up and at 'em, I don't have all night."

Gian stood in front of Sal and Viktor, stretching out his arm to hold Viktor back. "What's going on here?"

The one-eyed man heaved an exasperated sigh. "What's it look like? The boss is calling you three back in."

"This is a prison break?"

"Oh, you catch on quick," the man in the eye patch said sarcastically. "Look, I got other appointments tonight. You coming or what?"

The three prisoners shared a glance and stepped out of their cell. All throughout the cell block, Sin operatives were breaking down doors with the help of their pokemon. Sal watched as a Machamp yanked a cell door off the wall with a roar, hurling it down to the ground level with an echoing crash, liberating four of Pride's enforcers. Three operatives with machine guns took up position in front of the cell next door, and one of the women gestured to her Kadabra. The psychic type opened the door with telekinesis, and the operatives opened fire on three of the Baron's thugs within.

The one-eyed man cleared his throat. "We took care of the guards, but we don't have all night. I'm going to take care of the other guys on my list, and then I'll walk you out."

Before Sal or the others could reply, he and his Claydol moved down the line of cells and liberated two Kuromori assassins, and then three members of Wrath's crew. When he stopped for a third time, he muttered something to his Claydol, and the psychic type began to glow and spin faster. A splash of blood appeared on the tiny cell window, and the one-eyed man nodded and moved on to the next cell.

Once he had opened another door and let out the last of the prisoners on his list, he gestured to the liberated Sin personnel and motioned for them to follow him out of the cell block. The other operatives were shepherding their own charges, and Sal fell in line behind the one-eyed man. "I know you, don't I? You're one of Pride's guys too." he said as they exited the cellblock. "Kowalski? Krakowski"

"Otto Kozlowski," the one-eyed man said. "You broke my nose back when we were kids in Ridgewood, Genovese."

"You expect me to remember every guy I ever punched in the face? What's going on here?"

"I already told you, prison break. Boss's orders, or I would've paid you back for my nose."

If Sal had tangled with Otto back when they were young bucks in Ridgewood, it must have been over two decades ago. "When you say 'boss', are we talking Richelieu? Or…" Sal trailed off as he saw the limp forms of prison guards and their pokemon sprawled on either side of the hallway up ahead. A Hypno with a bullet hole through its head was slumped against the wall.

"You think Pride would be letting out a bunch of Kuromori? This comes from the top."

"Why?"

"You ask a lot of questions, Genovese. Once you get back to the mainland, that could be bad for your health." Otto sighed. "Our numbers got thinned in the Purge, but as far as Dominion was concerned they were acceptable losses, what with the new blood we brought in with the Kuromori. But then the heroes showed up and put a lot of our guys out of commission. The fact is, we're running with a skeleton crew right now, and we're thin on the ground. The boss realized we had a lot of talent on ice over here across the harbor, and she decided it was time we brought you all back into play."

Sal tried to keep his face impassive as they passed by another cluster of dead guards and pokemon. "How long do we have before the mainland sends backup?"

"Who knows? They probably heard something, but we took out their comms."

They paused in the entrance of the prison. The reinforced gates had been blasted apart by what looked like a powerful explosion, and bodies were strewn across the room. A few were black-clothed Sin operatives, but the vast majority were prison guards. Sal swallowed the bile that rose in his throat as they stepped over the bodies and out into the misting rain outside.

Although the walls inside Redstone were featureless concrete, the exterior was made of sandstone quarried from the mainland. It stood as an imposing bulwark on an otherwise barren and rocky island. A tall fence of barbed wire encircled the island's perimeter, but it was hardly necessary. The island dropped off to steep cliffs along the entire island's perimeter, and it was hemmed in by rocky shoals except for a small passage where the Clarus Corrections Department had built a small, heavily guarded pier for docking the prisoner transports that left the city twice daily.

The transport that had delivered the evening's shipment of prisoners had been demolished, and part of the bow could be seen sticking up from the churning waters of the harbor. Three black boats waited in its place, with spotlights turned on the pier. A pair of Gyarados loomed up beside the Sin boats, their fangs glinting in the moonlight. Otto smirked and glanced at Sal. "The orders came from the top, but Pride gave us her favorite toys for the job." Otto laughed at Sal's shocked countenance. "What, you never met Scylla and Charybdis before? Richelieu only lets the ladies out to play on the big jobs."

The two Gyarados lowered their spiked heads and leered at the assembled prisoners. Their nostrils flared, and the three-pronged fins at the sides of their fanged maws flared out. Sal took an unconscious step back as one of the great serpents turned her face towards him and bared fangs as long as Sal's forearm that glittered in the spotlights. Viktor muttered something that sounded like a prayer under his breath.

Another group of prisoners tramped out of the compound, this time from the smaller women's wing. "Reina!" Sal called when he saw the woman's matted and multi-colored hair. The anarchist looked up and didn't exactly smile, but she raised her eyebrows in a pleasantly surprised way.

"They busted you out too, huh?" she said. "I'm not one to look into a Delibird's sack, but this is…" She trailed off as she looked up at the Gyarados looming over them. "It's a lot."

"That's the last of them!" one of the enforcers called to the men at the dock. "We got everyone on the lists."

There was a shouted command that Sal couldn't make out, and one of the Gyarados rose up in the water, shifting her coils in the craggy shallows to stretch up as high as she could. A stark orange-white light appeared in her gaping maw, throwing stark shadows around the pier. The Gyarados unleashed the hyper beam at the ruined front gate of Redstone, and the heavy masonry shattered under the blast. She tracked the beam along the wall of the prison, bringing it down on itself as the blast vaporized the stones. The rumbling of the prison walls as they collapsed was almost loud enough to drown out the screams of the prisoners still trapped inside.

Otto's single eye sparkled as he watched Redstone collapse in on itself. The Gyarados sank back into the churning waters of the harbor with a sound that was eerily close to a human sigh. The one-eyed enforcer turned to Sal and the other freed prisoners. "We're playing for keeps now. As far as the boss is concerned, anything is fair game now. You come back with us, and you're going to be fighting for the cause, same as the rest of us. Any of you have qualms with that, you're welcome to sit around here and wait for the folks on the mainland to come for you, or take your chances swimming somewhere else." He smirked. "Now personally, I don't like your odds either way. But even if you do manage to get yourself clear, Dominion is going to know who abandoned her after she went through all the trouble of setting you free. And she really doesn't like it when people betray her.

"So what's it going to be? Are you in, or are you dead men walking?"

With those options, Sal decided he was in, and so was everyone else.

As the freed prisoners filed onto the boats that would take them back to the mainland, Otto stopped Sal and his crew. "Genovese." When Sal looked up, Otto shook his head. "Not you. Him."

Gian stepped forward and folded his arms. "What?"

Otto reached into the pocket of his coat and drew out what looked like a metallic pokeball. Instead of the usual vibrant red and white, this one had one steel half and one brass half, with an iron band around the midsection. The PPS pokeball shell was designed to keep pokemon secure in their balls for transport, and could be used to contain pokemon indefinitely if they proved to be dangerous or unable to be rehabilitated. The balls were nearly impossible to open without a special key, and the stock was kept under close guard by the PPS and the city's police forces.

Otto shook the ball and proffered it towards Gian. "You got lucky. We raided the PPS depot before coming here to get back some of the pokemon the PPS nabbed from us after the heroes' attack. Turns out with all the stuff going on lately, the PPS isn't processing new arrivals all that quick, so not all of your crews' had been transported out of the city. Richelieu wants the legendary Gian Genovese back on the front lines ASAP, so she pulled this one for you." When Gian hesitated, Otto pressed the ball into his hands. "We already took care of the lock. Come on, pop it open."

Gian hurled the ball at the ground, where it split open and an old, battered pokeball fell out. The ball burst open with a flash of light. A glowing shape whirled around Gian's head, emitting a low spectral hum. Sal's cousin flexed his fingers, and Dantès shot into his hands. A shiver went up Gian's spine as the Doublade's tassels wrapped around his wrists and forearms, binding their nervous systems together. "Thank you," Gian managed to gasp.

"Thank the boss," Otto replied. "She wants to see you when we get back."

"If you found Dantès," Viktor said, "does that mean you have my Tolya?"

"What about Hugo?" Reina asked. "He's my Carnivine, about this tall, his right leaf has a notch it and—"

"Did you find Vito?"

Otto rolled his eye and shrugged. "Look, all I know is that Pride wanted your cousin to have his Doublade back. We'll sort through the rest of you when we get back to the mainland. If we have your old partners, great! If we don't, we'll find you new ones."

"I don't want a new partner," Viktor growled. "I want Tolya back." Otto's Claydol burbled something and moved to place itself between the two men.

"All right, take it easy," Otto said, waving his pokemon down. "One step at a time, big guy. Let's get you all back to the mainland first, huh? The sooner you get on a boat, the sooner we work this out. Like I've been telling you, we don't have all night here."

Viktor nodded and brushed past the one-eyed man and up the gangplank into one of the waiting transports. Reina, Sal, and Gian followed just after him. Once the freed prisoners had all boarded, the boats turned away from the dock and shot out over the harbor, Scylla and Charybdis gliding in their wake.

Sal and Gian stood in the prow of their boat, along with several other escapees who huddled in clumps. Gian slowly moved his arms through the air, exulting in the feeling of being reunited with his pokemon partner. The Doublade buzzed with what Sal could only assume was equal happiness as its tassels snaked up and down his cousin's arms.

Sal took a deep breath, filling his nose with the scent of the sea wind. It smelled sharper here in the middle of the harbor than it had in the yard at Redstone, like he had thought it would. He had often thought, as he wiled away the hours in his cell, what his first taste of freedom would be like when he first got out. He hadn't expected it to have such a bitter aftertaste.

But then, Sal reflected, he wasn't really free at all. As the lights of Clarus loomed up over the water before him, he realized he had just traded one set of chains for another.


	31. Chapter 31

CHAPTER 31

The rain-slick pavement made Alex's footing treacherous, and the Sin thugs had enough backup that they figured they could be reckless. It was the kind of conditions where even the smallest error could become a fatal miscalculation, and more than ever, Alex was aware of the limits of his own mortality.

Fortunately, he wasn't without a few advantages of his own.

An over-aggressive Floatzel was flung back into its trainer with a psychokinetic pulse, and the next thug in line was picked up by an invisible force and tossed out of the alley like a ragdoll. Archangel dropped down next to Alex, pushing his hair back off his forehead. "The good news," the esper said, "is that with them focusing on us, the civilians have all cleared out. The bad news…"

"Is now they're all focusing on us, and we backed ourselves into a corner," Alex said. "Yeah, I noticed." Hierro darted past Alex, delivering a quick one-two punch to a Fraxure to stun the dragon type long enough for Alex to dispatch it with a hard whack from his stun baton. "Seven thugs left, nine pokemon between 'em. What's the over-under on us fighting through?"

An enforcer charged in with a wordless battle cry, only to fall on his backside as his forehead impacted with an invisible wall. Newton snapped his fingers and dispelled the barrier before twirling his spoon between his fingers, hurling the Floatzel back again with a psychic shove.

"Not the worst odds we've faced," Archangel said. "But this rain isn't making it easy. Watch yourself out there, Hawlucha Man."

"So long as you got my back?" Alex flashed the esper a grin, and Archangel returned it with a smile that stretched all the way to his eyeteeth. "I've got nothing to worry about."

Alex charged into the fray, his batons held out at his sides. He and Hierro crashed into the enemy mob, spinning and kicking and throwing up spray from every puddle they landed in to disorient their opponents. An Arbok lunged, and Alex dropped to a crouch as the serpentine pokemon sailed over his head and caught an uppercut on the chin from Hierro for its trouble. Alex slammed his baton into the poison type's coils and it dropped with a hissing shriek of pain. An enforcer came at Hierro with a machete, and Alex was at his partner's side, catching the blade on his baton and knocking the enforcer's legs out from under her to knock her flat on her back. Two touches from his batons put her out of the fight, and then Hierro was leaping over his back to slam into a pair of Mightyena with a roundhouse kick and a full body tackle. Bodies flew through the air as Archangel picked off targets beyond Alex's reach, and brittle translucent barriers appeared in the air around Alex and Hierro to cover their blind spots, shattering into tiny iridescent shards when hit, but giving Alex and his partner the time they needed to react and handle the incoming threat.

Alex grunted as an Accelgor slammed into his flank, nearly throwing him to the ground. The bug type unleashed a series of lightning-fast strikes to Alex's abdomen, driving the air from his lungs. Hierro lashed out at the Accelgor, but the insect danced back too quickly for the Hawlucha to get in a clean hit. Hierro raced after it, his claws skittering across the concrete. Alex sucked in a breath and tried to call out a warning, but he was too late.

The Accelgor's body began to glow, and an explosion of light and force burst from the bug type's exoskeleton. The full force of the Final Gambit struck Hierro full in the chest, and the Hawlucha tumbled head-over-tail feathers across the pavement. The bug type's trainer drew his sidearm and took aim at the injured Hawlucha. Alex sprinted down the alley, his blood pounding in his ears. He slid across the wet concrete, skidding to a stop just in front of the man and slamming his elbow against the man's forearm. The enforcer's shot went wide, but Alex lost his balance and stumbled to his knees. He had just enough time to think _Oh crap_ before the man recovered and leveled his gun at Alex's forehead.

At this range, there was nothing Alex could do to stop the shot, and the man wasn't going to miss a target right in front of him. His instincts screamed at him to run, but his muscles were frozen in place.

"Don't!" Archangel screamed. The man's eyes flicked up at the esper, and Archangel raised his hand in a placating gesture. "Don't shoot him! If you do…"

"You'll what?"

"You'll serious piss me off."

"I'll take my chances," the man said with a smirk. Alex saw his finger twitch on the trigger. He squeezed his eyes shut to brace himself for the sudden explosion of pain, and then whatever came next.

The pain didn't come.

After a few heartbeats, Alex slowly opened his eyes and saw the bullet hanging suspended in the air, barely a centimeter from his forehead. The enforcer's eyes were wide with panic, and Alex could see the man's frenzied breathing as he struggled to move. His eyes darted back and forth, and Alex realized that once he filtered out his heart pounding in his ears and the man's labored breathing, the night was eerily quiet.

Then he noticed that the rain had stopped.

The raindrops were literally frozen in place, as though time in the alley had stopped just as the enforcer had pulled the trigger. "Don't say I didn't warn you," Archangel said. He rose higher into the air, his eyes glowing with a spectral inner light. All of the other enforcers and thugs seemed to be frozen in place, and he stared down at them with naked contempt. "You may want to stand back, Hawlucha Man," the esper said. Alex scrambled to his feet and ran to Hierro's side, bundling the Hawlucha into his arms and retreating deeper into the alley, just to escape the weight of Archangel's gaze.

With a flick of the esper's finger, the bullet meant for Alex dropped to the ground with a _ping_. As soon as it touched the concrete, the preternatural calm of the alley was shattered as Archangel unleashed his fury. Humans and pokemon alike were hurled in every direction, slammed against the concrete walls of the municipal buildings on either side, tossed through windows in sprays of broken glass, or sent tumbling into the street. One of the thugs struggled to his feet, and Archangel seized a piece of broken masonry in his telekinetic hold, angling it so that a piece of jagged rebar was pointed directly at the man. With a flick of Archangel's wrist, the rebar shot into the man's leg with enough force to break through the stone of the wall behind him. Archangel snapped his fingers, and the rebar twisted to have two ninety-degree bends, making it impossible for the man to free himself.

"I'm tired of playing by the rules," Archangel said. His voice seemed to resonate, echoing in Alex's ears and making the air itself tremble. "Why should I have to handicap myself when vermin like you are running roughshod all over my city?" An enforcer and her Mienshao were hurled against the wall to Archangel's left, and the esper pushed hard enough to crack the stone around them and leave a crater-like indentation. "You humans are only good at breaking things." He closed his hand into a fist, and a wave of force rippled out from him, tearing up the stone of the alley. "But my patience with you and your boss has run out. I'm not going to hold back anymore."

The man with the gun rose up in the air, his limbs outstretched. Archangel folded his arms in front of his chest and the light in his eyes grew brighter. There was a crack as the bones in both of the mans' wrists snapped, and then further cracks and pops as Archangel worked his way through the bones in the man's fingers. The man screamed in pain as Archangel snapped the man's forearm, and Alex saw white bone poking through his skin.

"Joshua," Alex rasped. "This is going too far…"

"I'm done being merciful," Archangel replied. "No more 'be not afraid'." He twisted his wrist, and the frozen raindrops congealed in front of him in a shifting globe of dirty water. "If Dominion wants to grind this city under her boot, then I'm going to push back with everything I've got. I'll give her something to be afraid of." The water in front of him separated into long, thin lances that flashed in the distant glow of the streetlights. Before Alex's eyes, the watery lances froze, becoming jagged spars of ice.

"Calm down," Alex said. "Johannes wouldn't have wanted this!"

"Johannes is gone!"

"And this is how you honor his memory?"

The split-second of hesitation was all Newton needed. The Kadabra appeared in the air beside his human partner, and the air between them rippled. The glow faded from Joshua's eyes, and he slowly descended to the ravaged ground of the alley and sank to his knees. The rain began to fall again.

Newton grabbed Alex's wrist in a three-fingered hand and placed the other on Joshua's shoulder. Alex heard the sound of rushing wind and saw a brilliant flash of light, and then suddenly everything was quiet and still.

Alex fell to his knees, and beneath his hands he felt the worn fibers of an old, threadbare rung. Somewhere in the distance, a Noctowl hooted, and water gurgled as it rolled down a drainpipe. A soft breeze made branches in a nearby tree rustle, and Alex allowed himself a moment to let the calm wash over him as his eyes adjusted to the darkness of his new surroundings.

He felt Newton stumble past him, and then rusty springs in an aging bedframe squealed as the Kadabra settled onto the mattress, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders like a cloak. Alex grunted as he hefted Hierro's weight in his arms and laid his partner down across from the Kadabra. He sat down on the edge of the bed and removed his mask. "Where are we?" he asked, turning to Joshua's indistinct shape on the other side of the small room.

The esper dragged his body into a simple but solid-looking chair beside an equally simple desk. "Home sweet home," he muttered, seeming to fold in on himself. He reached out with one hand, and a lamp jerked across the desk, rocking back and forth on its cord until Joshua managed to push the switch with his telekinesis. The soft amber light revealed a spartan cell barely large enough to hold the bed, desk and small bedside table it contained. A narrow closet full of the starched white collared shirts Joshua preferred stood ajar on the opposite wall.

At Alex's blank look, Joshua stirred himself enough to clarify further. "This is an Arcean monastery just outside the city. When the military cut me loose, the brothers here took me in. The lifestyle helps me keep my powers under control, and being outside the city makes things better for everyone involved." He sighed. "Newton knows this is home base, so he can generally teleport me back here from anywhere in the city, but going such a long distance is tough on him."

"How far out are we?"

Joshua jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "The outskirts of north Clarus are about fifteen miles that way. Brother Gerard is taking the car into the city for groceries tomorrow morning, and he can give you and Hierro a ride at least to the uptown subway. I'll give you some of my clothes so you don't have to ride back to Avenbrooke in costume."

"Thanks." Alex shifted his weight, making the bed squeak. "Uh, you want to talk about what happened back there?"

Joshua pushed his rain-soaked curls back from his face. "I lost control. I've spent years training to keep my powers in check, but after losing Johannes and seeing that bastard ready to take you and Hierro away too…" He quickly dashed the tears from his eyes. "I wasn't going to let that happen, and I let my anger get the best of me. And I'd do it again too, if it meant keeping the people I care about safe."

Alex inclined his head. "I know how you're feeling right now. After everything that's happened… I can't lose anyone else either."

"This is all because I'm too weak."

"Dude, I just saw you rip through those Sin enforcers with your mind. You can throw eighteen wheelers around like softballs _with your mind_. You stopped two hyper beams cold… _with your mind_. You're the strongest esper in the city by, like, a couple orders of magnitude."

"Second strongest."

"You ripped apart Dominion's bunker with a flick of your wrist, and it was all she could do to keep standing. Your telekinesis is miles better than what she can do."

"My telekinesis is stronger than hers, yes. But overall, I'm much weaker." At Alex's blank look, Joshua sighed. "Look, you know how espers are classified, right? Class one, two, and so on? And yes, Dominion and I are both class three espers, but that doesn't mean we're equal. My telekinetic abilities are stronger than any class three on record, but I'm really a one-trick Ponyta. Outside of throwing things around with my mutant brain, I can't do much else. I have some weak telepathy that lets me communicate nonverbally with people I'm close with, so long as they're in the same room, and enough psychic empathy to make being in big crowds uncomfortable." He shrugged. "The empathy thing is probably a blessing though. If it was even a fraction as strong as my telekinesis, being anywhere near a city would be unbearable."

"So effectively, you only have one trick," Alex said. "It's a damn good trick. But Dominion has a few more things in her toolbox?"

"To put it in layman's terms, yes. Her ability to get into minds and twist them around is just as strong as my telekinetic power. From what I gather, she's got the ability to pick up on the thoughts of those around her without even trying, but she's got trouble digging through memories or anything that her subject isn't actively thinking about at the time."

"So when she was in my head, she didn't get my address? My secret identity is safe?"

"If she's left you alone this long, I think that's a safe bet."

Alex sagged back with a sigh of relief. He had been on edge for days, waiting for Dominion's goons to show up at his door and haul him off. "So she's got mind reading and mind control. But Clarus City is a big place, with a lot of people and pokemon, and that means a lot of thoughts buzzing around. Shouldn't that… have some kind of effect?"

"Not really. Both Marinette and I were instructed how to shield our mind from background noise like that when we were in military custody. It was harder for her, but she was ultimately better at it than I was."

Behind Alex, Hierro groaned as he slowly rose to consciousness. The bottom drawer of Joshua's desk slid open, and a bulky white first aid kit floated up into Alex's lap. "I have some Sitrus berry gel in there," the esper said. "If you rub some on Hierro, he should get some of his energy back. And obviously take anything you need for yourself."

While Alex set about patching up Hierro, he found a plastic container of dried Oran berries in the kit and passed them over to Newton to snack on. Alex applied the gel to Hierro's chest, and he felt the Hawlucha's breathing even out beneath his hands. Satisfied his partner was safe, Alex finally stripped off his costume and changed into a pair of athletic shorts and a t-shirt Joshua had found for him. "So the military… you were with them for how long?"

"Eight years, almost nine. When most kids were going out on their pokemon journeys, I got packaged off to a secret facility in the desert to be poked and prodded." Joshua didn't bother to hide the bitterness in his voice. "They were interested in me at first, once I proved I could juggle five fighter jets with my brain. But ultimately, there's nothing I can do that a few powerful psychic types working together can't either. Nah, they were always more interested in Marinette.

"When I first showed up, she wasn't so bad. Nice to me sometimes, even. We knew we were both two test subjects, so there was a kind of solidarity in that." Joshua shrugged. "It's pretty messed up in hindsight. But for years, it was all we knew. She had been there longer than I had, of course. She was more used to the tests, but as we got older, they got more intensive, and more invasive. For me, it was all about pushing my upper limits."

"What about Dominion?" Alex couldn't call her Marinette. It was hard to think of her as an actual person, someone who had shown a younger Joshua kindness and compassion. After she had sifted through his mind and turned him into a puppet under her control, he couldn't conceive of her as anything but a monster.

"We took our tests separately, so I don't know everything. But from what I gathered, the military was always more interested in her. A esper with the kind of powers she had was far easier to control than a psychic pokemon. Even the more intelligent ones have trouble understanding complex orders and abstract concepts, which makes their telepathy unreliable in the field. But a human operative who could control enemy forces for long periods was an invaluable resource." Joshua rummaged in another one of his drawers and pulled out a thick folio of papers. "This is everything about me that got declassified when the military esper program shut down a few years ago. It took a while, but I tracked all of it down and complied it here."

Alex flipped through the pages of complicated data, squinting to make it out in the low light. "Project Archer?" he asked when he noticed that was printed atop every page in the folio.

"My codename. Sums up what they thought about my powers. Good for throwing things around and not much else." He smiled ruefully. "I changed it to Archangel, because I thought it sounded cooler."

Seeing years of Joshua's life laid out in text before him made Alex feel strange, and he passed the files back to the esper. "Has anything like this been declassified for Dominion?"

"The military is willing to acknowledge that Project Puppeteer existed, but anything more than that is wrapped up in so much red tape. It's impossible to track down anything solid. I've got to assume that Marinette has hunted down and destroyed anything she can find." The esper put his file back in his desk. "That said, I've filled in some of the blanks myself. I know that once they'd established her benchmarks, a lot of her testing focused on multitasking; controlling multiple people at once, reading minds while controlling them, doing all of that with crowds of people, and so on."

"So how good is she?"

"When it comes down to simple commands, she can probably influence a few hundred people in a small area. Anything more complex and she'll run up against some trouble. She's pretty good at filtering through the noise and pulling out what she wants, and she can exert her control over people for a long time. All of this information is a few years old, and it's clear she's only gotten better since the military turned us loose."

For a time, the only sound was the faint pattering of rain against the tiled roof above their heads. Hierro stirred a little, and Alex wrapped the Hawlucha in a spare blanket. The flying type settled and quietly sank into sleep. While Alex ran his fingers through his partner's feathers, Joshua toweled off his sodden hair. "I understand why Marinette ended up like this. She's holding a grudge for all the time she lost in the program. For years, we were hooked up to all kinds of monitors with electrodes and needles, with no freedom or privacy. We were at our handlers' beck and call. When the program shut down and we were let go, I was young enough to look on the bright side and put it all behind me. But she wanted payback.

"All of her handlers are dead now, from what I've heard. I don't know what her end goal is in all of this, but it's a mistake to think that she's this calculating mastermind. This is all just her lashing out with a teenage revenge plot."

Alex remembered Dominion's stunned reaction when he had managed to throw his baton at her. "It's all just a game to her, isn't it? She's making it all up as she goes along. That's why she's so capricious, why there's no pattern. She just moves her pieces around because it's fun for her to make us all dance on her strings."

"And that's why we need to be on our toes," Joshua replied. "She never expected us to punch back like we did. The Redstone break is just the beginning; it's her putting her pieces back on the board. If I know Marinette, she's going to start making riskier plays. With the Sins and the Kuromori under her control, she's got more incentive to go bigger and break more. When we attacked her compound, we spit in her eye, so as far as she's concerned, this is personal now."

"We're going to have to train harder." Alex's hand curled into a fist, bunching the sheets under his hand. "We need to get strong enough to stop her once and for all, now more than ever."

"And the clock is ticking."

"Right." Alex glanced down at Hierro, and then back at Joshua. "When the time comes, are you going to be able to do it? The more I think about it, the more I feel we won't be able to stop Dominion without you. You say she's stronger than you, but…"

"She _is_ stronger than me, and I don't think I can win in a straight up fight on my own." A golden glow sparkled in Joshua's gray eyes, and his hair floated up around his head. "But when the time comes, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you and the rest of our friends can take her down, even if I have to burn through every bit of power I have."

Alex held out his fist, and Joshua reached across the gap between them to bump it with his own. The brief contact sent a rush of sensation up through Alex's arm and into his chest, and for the briefest moment, he could feel the howling maelstrom of power that Joshua held inside himself, and could only marvel at the intense control the esper must have to exercise at all times to keep it under control.

Joshua flicked his finger, and a dark shape slid out from under his bed. "I think our partners have made themselves comfortable already, so Newton's camp bed is all yours."

Alex sank down onto the thin mattress with a groan. "What about you?"

Joshua sat atop his desk and pulled his knees into the lotus position. "I'll be fine here. A little meditation will do more for me than sleep will at this point." As Alex watched, Joshua's seated form lifted off the desk and rose several inches in the air. As he drifted off to sleep, he heard Joshua chuckle at something.

"What?"

Joshua shook his head, and his golden curls glowed in the faint silver glow of the moonlight coming through the shades. "No, it's… kind of stupid, and a little embarrassing."

"Oh come on." Alex propped himself up on his elbow. "How many times have you watched me get my ass handed to me? You don't get to talk to me about embarrassing."

"Oh, all right," Joshua said. "It's just that this… well, it's kind of the first sleepover I've had in years."

"Dude, we need to get you out more."


	32. Chapter 32

CHAPTER 32

"This is the place," Alex said, looking up at the illuminated clock face across the plaza. "And now he's late." Hierro huffed out a breath and puffed out his feathers. "Yeah, totally a dick move," Alex replied. "If I were a cynical man, I'd say he's just keeping us here so that his goons can go stir up trouble on the other side of town. Now, I'm not _that_ cynical," he continued, "but lucky for me, the Ronin is."

Hierro tittered in what passed for laughter for the Hawlucha. "So can anyone blame me if I fired off a quick text to our local mass murderer and told him to be on his toes for any of the Baron's tricks tonight? I certainly don't think so."

"A monologue, Hawlucha Man?" the Baron called from the plaza below as he and a trio of guards climbed out of a sleek black town car. "By Arceus, you heroes really are going in for the clichés now."

Alex and Hierro kicked off the roof of their building and glided down to the street level. The Baron's guards reached for their weapons as soon as Alex's feet touched the ground, but their boss waved them down. "You're late," Alex said.

"Yes, I rather caught that part."

When Alex had gone to check one of Lust's dead drops, he hadn't expected to see a message from the Baron inviting him to a parley. The uncontested crime lord of Avenbrooke had been playing cautiously ever since the Hammer's funeral, and after some deliberation Alex and Hierro had decided to meet Pirozzi under the flag of truce to see what the little prick had to say for himself. Alex told the Baron this in only slightly more delicate terms.

"It's been a while since our last little chat, and I found myself wanting some of your _refreshing_ company," the Baron said. "Ever since you and your friends rushed into Dominion's stronghold half-cocked and guns blazing, the underworld has been in a rather tumultuous state of unrest. So I'd like to hear, from the Mudsdale's mouth, as it were, just _what_ the motherfucking _hell_ you heroes were thinking?"

At the vehemence in Pirozzi's tone, Hierro stepped forward to interpose himself between his partner and the Baron. The fighting type flexed his claws, and the Baron's grunts went for their guns again. "Oh, enough," the Baron snapped, just as Alex said "Hey, easy."

The young hero glared at the Baron. "Dominion had become too large a threat to ignore, and after she set the city on edge on Purge Night and took over the Kuromori, we needed to strike a decisive blow and take her down. It didn't work out like that, but we managed to significantly cripple her organization, and we've had her on her back foot ever since."

"Oh sure," the Baron snarled. "She's been making all kinds of mistakes lately, like breaking out every operative she's got from Redstone prison and systematically hunting down all of my capos!" He took a deep breath and gathered his composure. "Regardless, none of this is news to me. What I am asking is why didn't you come to me?"

"Uh… what?" Hierro glanced over his shoulder and gave Alex a blank look. Alex shrugged and turned back to the Baron.

The Baron sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "You… have you never heard 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'? I want Dominion gone more than anyone else in the city. That damned psychic bitch is bad for business."

Alex smirked. "Legitimate business or…?"

"Immaterial. If you had only come to me, I could have sent my men in along with you, and maybe we could have salvaged something from that massive clusterfuck you heroes caused. Maybe then everyone could have gone home safe."

Hierro hissed out a breath, and it took every ounce of self-control Alex had not to knock the Baron flat for that jibe. Instead, he dug his fingernails into the meat of his palm hard enough to nearly break the skin, and when he had managed to compose himself, he shook his head. "The intel on the raid was need to know, and you sure as hell didn't." He clicked his tongue at Hierro and turned away. "Now, if we're done here…"

"Not quite," the Baron interjected. "There is… another matter I want to discuss, but not here." He opened the back door of the town car and gestured inside.

"You want me to go with you, my arch nemesis—"

"Don't flatter yourself."

"Go with you, to a second location. Do you think I'm a total idiot?" The Baron opened his mouth, and Alex held up a finger. "Actually, don't answer that."

The Baron sighed and rolled his eyes, clearly growing impatient. "All right, fine. If my word that you will not come to harm isn't good enough for you, I'll give you three reasons you'll be completely safe if you just get in the damn car. The first," he said, tapping the taillight of the car with his finger, "is that my car costs more than most people will make in a decade. I am rather fond of it, and I would hate for it to come to harm through your _antics_. The second reason," he continued, counting off on his fingers, "is that the upholstery _in_ the car cost me roughly half of the car itself to get it installed, and disposing of you on the way would completely ruin it."

Hierro glanced over his shoulder at Alex, and an incredulous look passed between the two of them, but the Baron paid it no mind. "The third and perhaps most compelling reason is that the second location I will be escorting you to is my home, where I own no small number of priceless objects that I do not wish to come to any harm. Knowing you and your partner, any attempt on my part to have you disposed of there would cause no end of damage to my property before my men finally managed to take you down, and that's a cost too dear for my blood. And that's not even getting into how tiresome it would be to remove your bodies from the premises."

"So you're saying we can trust you to not do us any harm because you're a materialistic prick?"

"Well, I wouldn't say it in so many words but—"

"Okay, we'll go. But a few conditions."

"You aren't exactly in a position to negotiate, Hawlucha Man."

"I'm in a position to kick your goons' butts five ways to next week, punch your teeth in, and key your car for good measure, so I'd say I am." The Baron growled, and Alex smirked. "First, my Hawlucha stays with me at all times. Second, I keep my batons on my person, but I won't pull them out unless provoked. Third, your bodyguards stay here, and you personally drive me to your place. Both hands on the wheel at all times, where I can see them."

"I am not a chauffeur!"

"That's the deal, Carlo." Alex had to exert an effort of will to keep from cracking up at the Baron's indignant countenance that had gone a vibrant Tomato-berry red.

The Baron thought it over for a moment and inclined his head. "Fine. Get in the car, and make sure your Hawlucha doesn't scratch the leather." He stalked to the driver-side door and threw it open, settling himself on the seat. Alex and Hierro slid into the back, and Alex made sure Hierro kept his talons clear of the upholstery.

As the car slid out of the plaza and into the nighttime gloom of the Avenbrooke streets, Alex sank back into the leather seats with a soft, contented groan. The Baron was right, the upholstery was luxurious, almost enough for him to let his guard down. The Baron fumed quietly in the front seat, and Alex left him to stew in it. If he was willing to put up with this kind of treatment, then whatever he had to talk to Alex about must be serious. Or he was putting on a convincing show to get Alex killed.

Just in case, Alex popped the lock on the car door and made sure he was ready to throw it open at a moment's notice.

They passed out of the jumble of streets that made up central Avenbrooke and turned towards the district of upscale brick townhouses that had been converted into apartments. This was the chic part of Avenbrooke, but in time even it fell away as they continued further east, to the old manor houses on the Avenbrooke-Greenpoint line, remnants of a bygone age of Clarus City's mercantile past. The Baron guided the car up to a large metal gate that barred access to a wide driveway flanked by hedgerows. He silently rolled down his window and glared into the small security camera mounted by the gate, and the barrier swung open on mechanical hinges.

Carlo Pirozzi's mansion was opulent even by the standards of Clarus City's upper crust, stopping just shy of being tastelessly gaudy. Tall marble columns flanked the entrance, and a fountain burbled in the center of the looping driveway. Golden light shone out from several of the tall windows on the mansion's façade, but aside from a few shifting shadows within, it seemed empty.

But looks were deceiving, so when he and Hierro warily stepped out of the car, they were ready to duck behind it for cover if they so much as heard a firearm click.

"If I wasn't already so irate, I'd be offended you weren't taking me at my word," the Baron grumbled as he hustled up the steps to the front door. A well-dressed footman received them, taking Alex in with a look of only mild surprise. Alex had to admire the man's professionalism, at least. The Baron dismissed the man with a distracted flick of his wrist, and Alex scanned the man's profile as he quick-stepped away, making sure that there were no concealed weapons.

The crime boss of Avenbrooke pointed to a room off the foyer. "Go wait in there. Bruce will keep an eye on you."

"I thought you wanted to talk. I'm here, so talk."

"The matter we'll be discussing requires a certain… visual aid."

Alex sighed and gestured for the Baron to lead on. Hierro followed behind him, his claws clicking on the tiled floor. They emerged into a richly decorated parlor with several elegant antique chairs arranged around what Alex assumed was an expensive carpet that looked to be woven with golden thread. A flute arrangement played from a record on a turntable, accompanied by chimes and a violin. A grand piano stood off to one side, and on the other side of the room, a Blastoise crouched. The hulking water type glanced up with a low growl as Hierro crossed the threshold, but seeing the Baron, it settled back on its haunches and settled for fixing the Hawlucha with a hooded glare.

Bruce Giordano stood before an easel and a table with an artful arrangement of fruits, cutlery, and a vase of flowers, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows, and the paintbrush and palette he held looked comically small in his thick hands. The hulking man looked up from his canvas as his employer cleared his throat. "The next time we need to arrange a chat with Hawlucha Man," the Baron said, "you're coming with me. If he's this difficult again, I want you to hogtie him and bring him here in the trunk."

"I'm right here you know," Alex said.

The Baron just huffed out a breath and turned on his heel. "I'm off to fetch our other guest."

Giordano and Alex were silent until the Baron's footsteps had faded into a different part of the house. The giant turned back to his paints and smirked. "You got him real pissed."

"One of the few perks of my job," Alex replied. He edged around to get a look at Giordano's canvas, and was mildly impressed. The bodyguard had ably captured the still-life before him, but something about the way he had chosen his colors and arranged the shadows of the composition gave it a slightly surreal look. Something about it was just _off_ , but in a clearly intentional way that Alex couldn't put his finger on. "That's… really good, actually."

Giordano dabbed at the canvas. "Well, I sure hope I didn't spend four years at the Clarus Institute of Art and Design for nothing."

"You… what? But you're… well…"

"Pirozzi's big dumb muscle?" The corner of Giordano's mouth twitched up. He continued painting for a moment before stepping back and squinting at the canvas. "Needs more… hm. More shadow here."

"So this is how you unwind after a long day of busting heads?"

"Something like that. My paintings are pretty good at laundering money for the boss, so he encourages the hobby." When Alex scowled, Giordano smirked. "If the Baron needs to collect from someone, and we want to obfuscate the paper trail a little bit, they 'buy' one of my paintings to make the exchange look above board. I do forgeries too, sometimes, but I'm not crazy about the work. Mostly it's just to mess with some big collector when they piss off the boss."

Alex's hands drifted down to his batons. "Is this one of those things were you're only telling me this because you're going to kill me?" Hierro positioned himself between his partner and Giordano's Blastoise, but the giant water type barely spared the Hawlucha a second glance.

"What? Fuck no." Giordano barked out a laugh. "Boss said you're here under truce. I'm just bragging. You know I've got four paintings in the CMAC under three different names?"

"For real?"

"Yup. I have a standing bet with some of the boss's capos that I owe them a beer if they figure any of them out." Giordano dabbed at his palette. "They never do, obviously. I doubt any of 'em have even been inside the CMAC, the uncultured savages."

Pirozzi cleared his throat behind them. "Well Bruce, if you're quite done fraternizing with the enemy…" Giordano rolled his eyes and gestured for the Baron to continue. The crime boss stepped out of the doorway and gestured someone forward. Alex and Hierro instinctively tensed, but when the person behind the Baron stepped into the light, Alex saw it was just a thin teenager, his face hidden in the depths of a black hoodie.

The young man gave his head an imperious toss and glowered down his nose at the Baron. Pirozzi's lip curled, and Giordano set his paints down as he stepped around his easel. An Ariados scuttled into the room, snapping its mandibles as it crouched at the boy's feet, hissing and spitting at the Baron. Genbu stirred in the corner again, angling one of its cannons at the crimson insect. Alex couldn't help but feel like the scene playing out before him was nothing new, and that all of the participants had gone through the motions several times before.

"Hawlucha Man," the Baron said. "Meet my ward—"

"I'm not your _anything_ ," the boy snapped.

Aside from a slight tightening of the Baron's jaw, he continued on as though the interruption had not happened. "My ward, Kaito Kuromori."

"Kuromori?!"

"Kaito is the illegitimate son that Saito Kuromori was happy to forget." Pirozzi smirked as the boy clenched his hands into fists and jammed them into the pocket of his sweatshirt. "A little accident with one of Saito's mistresses," he continued. "Saito kept his existence quiet, and I'm not entirely sure even Tsukiyama knew about him. But I heard about Saito's dirty little secret several years ago, and took pains to keep tabs on little Kaito. When the Vixen had her little coup in the Purge, I swooped in and took him under my protection."

"Did I ask for your help?" Kaito growled.

The Baron continued ignoring him. "I thought it would be prudent to keep the secret heir to the Kuromori clan on the board and out of my enemies' hands, but Kaito has proven… difficult. It seems that he has no wish to pursue his destiny as scion of the ninja clan, nor does he seem interested in helping me in my own endeavors, despite my generosity. No, instead, he wants to be _hero_ ,of all things."

Kaito stepped forward, locking eyes with Alex. "I'm a Kuromori, and my father made sure I received the same training anyone else in the clan gets. But I don't want his legacy! I want to use my training for good. I want to make sure bastards like my father can't hurt and exploit the people of this city anymore. I want to stop people like the Baron." His shadowed eyes grew suddenly intent, and his voice took on a pleading note. "I want to be just like you."

"You see what I mean?" Pirozzi said. "I can't get him to see reason, and I'm tired of him sulking around my house. I figured if he wants to be a hero so badly, I might as well just turn him over to you."

Alex scowled. "A hero with Kuromori training could spell trouble for you down the line. You're not the kind of person to let a risk to your business walk free. Why tell me all of this? Why go through all the trouble?"

"Because for all that Kaito wishes to deny his heritage, he is still Saito Kuromori's heir. It's possible that he has a more valid claim to leadership than Yuuko Kuromori. He's a symbol, and I think he might have more value to me in the long term if I keep him on the board, rather than taking him off it now."

"You're a coldhearted bastard."

"I'm a businessman."

Alex stepped forward and put his hand on Kaito's shoulder. "I'm done listening to this guy. If you want to be a hero, follow me." He glared at the Baron. "Are we done? Because I'm done."

"If you say so, Hawlucha Man."

Alex and Hierro swept out of the mansion, and he heard Kaito and his Ariados scrambling after them. Alex didn't stop to look back until they had crossed the Baron's lawn and reached the large front gates, which swung open on soundless hinges. It wasn't until he and Kaito had crossed the threshold and the gates had closed behind them that he finally stopped.

"Oh crap. Did you have stuff in there?"

Kaito shrugged. "A toothbrush and a change of pants. It's whatever."

"Okay good. That totally would have ruined a perfectly good exit." He flashed the teenager a grin, and got a tentative half smile back.

Though Alex managed to keep a reasonably calm face, inside he was panicking. He could barely afford to take care of himself, let alone a teenager. Under different circumstances, he would have taken the kid straight to Jiro and let him sort things out, but Jiro was still in his self-imposed exile, and hadn't been seen in weeks. If he was honest, his first choice would have been to go to Johannes, but…

With those options off the table, he was a little more limited. He couldn't exactly show up at Forbes manor with the heir to one of the city's most notorious crime families in tow and expect Isabelle to look after him, and he certainly wasn't about to dump Kaito on Edgar. Captain Unova had a couple kids, but Alex couldn't ask him to take on the responsibility of a teenager on top of all that, and no one else in his network seemed responsible enough to look after him, or had the means to do so. He racked his brain for a solution that wouldn't put him on half rations, and then an idea struck.

"Being a hero isn't easy," he said. "I'm risking my life every night, and I've been in more close shaves than I care to admit. I'm not even sure I'm qualified to be taking you on as… an apprentice, I guess?"

"I can fight," Kaito said. "I told you, I have Kuromori training and—"

"I'm not doubting you," Alex replied. "But I couldn't live with myself if I took that on faith and got you into a situation where you got hurt. Especially since you're still a kid, and I guess I'm kind of responsible for you now and…"

"I can look after myself!"

"Yeah, like I said, I believe you! But I kind of want to see what you can do for myself. I know the Kuromori are experts at hand to hand combat, and they're all natural acrobats. But if you have to go up against the Kuromori, or the Baron's thugs, or the Sins, what can you do that's going to get out on top?"

Kaito snapped his fingers, and his Ariados leapt into the air and onto his back, latching around his midsection with its legs and becoming something like a chittering, insectoid backpack. "When it comes to moving around the city, Hanzo and I are second to none. He can use his silk to swing the two of us around, like a grappling hook, you know? And then we drop down on our foes from above, just like you."

"G-Grappling hook?"

"Watch this." Hanzo's mandibles clicked and a thick length of spider silk shot from its jaws to the top of a nearby lamppost. Once the thread connected, Kaito and his pokemon partner jerked into the air on the elastic silk and shot upwards, and before Alex knew it, the young ninja was perched atop the pole.

"Dude," Alex gasped.

"I can swing from building to building like this too, but," Kaito gestured around, "the houses here are too far apart, and set too far from the street."

"Okay, color me impressed. What do you say we head back to the tenements a few blocks that way, and I'll take you for a test run?"

Kaito bounced off the lamp, and Hanzo created another length of silk that the young man slid down on. "Sure, let's go. The further we get from here, the better."

A short time later, when Alex had managed to find a fire escape to clamber up, he and Kaito stood poised at the edge of a rooftop. "We're headed to Greenpoint," Alex said, gesturing with his chin. "All you've got to do is keep up with me; I'll call out the directions as we go along. Think you can handle keep up?"

"I don't know, Hawlucha Man. Do you think _you_ can keep up with _me_?"

"Watch it, kid." Alex took a few steps back and bounced on his heels. "Ready? Go!" He and Hierro shot out over the edge of the building and spread their wings, gliding over the gap to the next rooftop and breaking into a run. The faint _thwip_ behind him told Alex that Kaito was in hot pursuit. With a quick step and a leap, Alex surmounted a raised HVAC unit and threw himself off it, catching an updraft and spiraling up into the air before stooping into a dive.

Hanzo shot two lengths of silk, one on each side of an alley, and used the flimsy cradle to catch himself and Kaito as they fell. The elastic silk stretched out before snapping back, catapulting Kaito high into the air, well past Alex, where the young ninja turned in a somersault before his Ariados grappled onto the next building.

Hierro cruised up to his trainer and cast Alex a significant glance. "Yeah, he's pretty good," Alex admitted. "But we're just getting warmed up, right?" They glided down to a ledge of a taller building and raced up the fire escape to the roof, the highest point for several blocks. As Alex judged his jump, Kaito shot up past him, landing lightly on the balls of his feet.

"Winded yet, old man?"

"I'm not even ten years older than you! And no!" He pointed northeast, towards a shadowy patch of Greenpoint, north of the Warren. "That's where we're headed. You up for that?"

"Easy."

"Then let's get moving!" Alex launched himself off the ledge, cutting through the air like an arrow before spreading his wings wide to generate lift. Hierro clawed his way up to a higher vantage point before back flipping off the radio transmitter affixed to the top of the tower, soaring over Alex's head on soundless wings, his razor-sharp eyes scanning the rooftops below for their next jump point. Kaito whispered a command to Hanzo, and the Ariados affixed a length of silk to the building they stood on before Kaito jumped, using the thread as a bungee cord to arrest their fall. When the cable snapped taunt, Hanzo detached the silk and swung them over to the next building, using the two-strand technique to launch Kaito skyward again.

In no time at all, they had cleared the Avenbrooke line, and began to soar over the twisting, narrow streets of Greenpoint. When Alex and Kaito landed atop a long warehouse, both young men were panting slightly and trying hard not to show it. "So," Alex said as he tried to discreetly catch his breath and roll a cramp out of his shoulder, "you want to be a hero. Have you given any thought to your hero name?"

"Only like every day for a year," Kaito replied. "I'm going to be Spinarak Man!"

Alex glanced down at Hierro, and the Hawlucha cringed. "Uh… are you sure?"

"What's wrong with it?"

"I don't know, I just don't see a Spinarak themed hero catching on." Alex patted Kaito on the shoulder. "It's okay, we'll workshop it."

Kaito rolled his eyes, but Alex was already moving on. He was loathe to admit it, but the young Kuromori was keeping him on his toes. The kid was more than capable of keeping up with him, and his instincts and agility seemed to live up to his boasting.

When they reached the Warren, Kaito was even more in his element. The narrow byways and chaotic jumble of roofs proved ideal for him to swing his way through, even as Alex struggled to find buildings high enough to jump from and maintain a steady glide. Kaito's footing was steady and sure on even the most lopsided and slippery of shingles and roof tiles. The wary denizens of the Warren ducked into the shadows as they watched the hero and the ninja pass overhead, undoubtedly thinking that Kaito was a full-fledged Kuromori being pursued by one of the city's heroes and not wanting to get caught in the middle of their fight.

As they neared the edge of the Warren, a scream echoed from below. Alex and Hierro immediately angled their flight path to investigate, and saw an older woman shielding two young children behind her as a pair of pale, sunken-eyed men advanced, each one holding a knife. A Growlithe crouched at the woman's heels, snarling at the attackers. When the fire type lunged forward, a Drowzee emerged from the shadows behind the men and hurled it backwards with a psychic pulse. A Murkrow jumped from the second man's shoulder to attack it again, but before it crossed even half of the distance, Hierro screamed down from the sky and slammed the bird into the pavement. Alex was only a heartbeat behind, dropping into a roll and coming up with his stun batons in hand. Before the Drowzee managed to launch an attack, Alex had brought his baton down on its proboscis and overloaded the psychic organ with as much voltage as his baton could muster.

The men snarled and hurled out two more pokeballs, summoning a Raticate and Ninjask. Alex and Hierro dropped back to stand in front of the woman and the two children. "Don't worry," Alex said. "My buddy and I will keep you safe." One of the kids whimpered, but the woman, probably their grandmother given her apparent age, nodded to Alex and pressed the children further back.

Alex noted that the two men had severely sunken cheeks, and the veins on their arms had darkened to nearly black and strained against their skin. That meant they were somnambulists, so desperate for their next hit of dream dust that they had taken to skulking the back alleys of the Warren to mug the already-destitute of what little they had left. Addicts like this were becoming more and more common lately as the Sins' drug pushers stepped up their campaign to spread dream dust even further.

Narcotics wards and shelters were overflowing, but plenty of addicts were slipping through the cracks. The psychic effects of the drug were proving highly potent, and from what Alex heard, Noboru Takeda was no closer to a curative drug. Taking down somnambulists always made Alex feel a little guilty, but when they started attacking innocent people, he felt that his duty was clear. He had to protect those immediately in danger before he started trying to solve all of society's ills.

When the Raticate pounced, Hierro darted forward, slamming his fist into the normal type's snout. In the Warren, Hierro knew better than to ignite his claws; too many of the old tenement buildings were made of wood, and all it would take was an errant spark and the whole district would go up like a powder keg. The two men with knives circled, but Alex focused instead on the Ninjask. The bug type surged forward, its wings humming as it closed in.

Alex jumped to put himself in the insect's path, but the Ninjask swerved away, circling around the hero before Alex could react and making a beeline for the older woman. "Too slow!" Kaito shouted from over Alex's head, and a length of silver-white silk shot past Alex's field of vision, hitting the Ninjask's thorax and sticking fast.

Kaito landed in a crouch, one hand tracking up to the silk thread extending from Hanzo's mandibles. As soon as he touched the ground, the young ninja yanked the thread and spun on the balls of his feet, jerking the Ninjask back and hurling it into the chest of its trainer. The second somnambulist rushed at Kaito, but the Kuromori heir danced back, out of range of the clumsy knife strike. As soon as his weight settled on his back foot, he pushed off it and jabbed his fingers into a series of pressure points, making the man's arm go numb. Kaito seized the knife as it fell, even as the somnambulist pulled his left hand back for a punch. Hanzo sprang off his partner's back, falling on the man with a shriek and a flurry of limbs.

Kaito flicked his fingers, and the stolen knife tumbled end-over-end through the air, sinking up to its handle into the second somnambulist's right shoulder just as he managed to struggle free of his Ninjask. Kaito sprinted towards him, laying the man flat with a right hook to the side of his face.

Just as Kaito turned to grin at Alex, an invisible force lifted him off his feet and hurled him against the wall of the alley. Alex whirled and threw one of his batons to Hierro. The Hawlucha snatched it out of the air, and hero and pokemon each delivered a blow to the Drowzee, knocking it out for a second time.

After making sure the two somnambulists were out of the fight, Alex took their pokeballs and returned all four of their pokemon as Hanzo spun the two men into a cocoon. Once that was taken care of, Alex crouched in front of Kaito and helped him to his feet. "Sorry, that one's on me. I thought I took care of the Drowzee."

"Nah," Kaito groaned as he massaged his back. "I should have seen it coming. I got overconfident." He quirked up an eyebrow. "But I doing was pretty awesome up until then, right?"

"It was… competent."

"Oh, come on! I basically took those guys all on my own." He grinned at Alex. "Sure, maybe I need a bit more practice, but am I hero material or what?"

"You know, the other Kuromori I've met aren't nearly as talkative as you." Alex softened the words with a smile. "Still, you've got potential." He turned to the woman. "Are you going to be able to get home from here? My sidekick and I can—"

"I'm _not_ a sidekick!"

"We can escort you, if you need it."

The woman shook her head. "We'll manage, I think. It's just another block." She smoothed her Growlithe's fur. "Thank you for your help. If you hadn't come by…"

"All part of the job, ma'am." Alex snapped off a jaunty salute, and Hierro copied him. "When things go bump in the night, the heroes of Clarus City are there to keep you safe." Hierro jumped into the air, and Hanzo latched onto Kaito's back. The three of them ascended to the rooftops, and the Ariados sent down a length of silk for Alex to grab onto. The bug type hauled him up, and Alex watched as the woman herded the two children around the corner and into the safety of their tenement building before taking off at a run over the rooftops of the Warren again.

"You know, I could get used to that," he remarked to Kaito as they ran.

"What, the me saving your ass part, or the free lift up a building part?"

"Both, if I'm honest."

Once they were clear of the Warren, it only took them a short while to reach their destination. As they got closer, Alex had them drop down to the ground level so that he could read the street signs. When they finally arrived at the address the Shadow had told him about, an old gray house on loan from the Clarus Archdiocese, Kaito paused at the base of the stoop.

"What is this? I thought I was coming with you?"

"Kaito, I live in a studio apartment that's not really big enough for me, Hierro and my Skitty. I can barely afford to feed the three of us most of the time. I can't take care of you, but this place can." At Kaito's stricken look, Alex put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm just a phone call away. If you need anything, I'll be there to help, I promise. You want to be a hero, and I support that. But you're also what, fifteen, sixteen? You deserve to be a normal kid for at least a little while."

"During the day. Just during the day." Kaito folded his arms. "At night, I'm going to be a hero. Like you."

"Sure. I don't know if Shepherd Matt is going to agree, but I'm sure as hell not going to stop you. Come on." He led Kaito up the steps to the doors of St. Ulfi's House and pressed the buzzer. After a few minutes, a bedraggled man appeared at the door in his pajamas, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"What? Can I… oh. Hello, Hawlucha Man."

"Shepherd Matthew, I need to call in a favor."

The Arcean Shepherd blinked sleepily. "I'm not sure what I can do for you but the Lord does say—"

Alex motioned Kaito forward. "He needs a place to stay. His father died recently, and his mother... uh…"

"She's gone too," Kaito said.

Alex glanced at the Shepherd. "He needs somewhere to go, and I remembered that the Shadow, that is, Bridget, she said…"

Matthew seemed to shake himself awake. "Right. Of course. St. Ulfi's House will take in any youth who has nowhere to go. Please, come with me, ah… I didn't catch your name."

"Kaito," the young man said. "Kaito Kur… Kurama."

"Yes, well, right this way…"

The Shepherd walked into the house, and Kaito moved to follow him. He paused on the threshold, and Alex gave him an encouraging smile. "It's going to be okay. I'll be here whenever you need me. I promise." He told the young ninja his phone number, and made sure Kaito committed it to memory. "Any time you need me, just call."

"And you'll help me be a hero, like you?"

Alex put his hand over his heart. "I promise." When Kaito stepped inside, Hanzo skittering at his heels, Alex walked down the stairs to the street, where Hierro waited. The two of them walked down the street, scanning the alleys for a suitable fire escape to climb back up to the rooftops. As they walked, Alex wondered if this would have been what Johannes wanted. Certainly, the Hammer had often talked about passing the torch of heroism down to the rising generation, but Alex knew that being a hero was a heavy burden to bear. He wasn't sure if he should have tried to dissuade Kaito from such a course, especially at such a young age. But the young Kuromori was certainly skilled, and his prowess would undoubtedly be an asset in the fighting to come. Alex kicked a pebble down the sidewalk and sighed. He could only hope to be half the mentor to Kaito that Johannes had been to him, and to do everything he could to keep the young ninja safe.

And if he was honest, he was eager to Hanzo in action again. The Ariados's use of silk for maneuverability and combat had piqued Alex's interest, and he could get used to an easy way to scale the face of buildings. Maybe having a young sidekick wasn't such a bad idea after all…


	33. Chapter 33

CHAPTER 33

Alex sprinted across a rooftop and hurled himself into the air, angling towards the rattle of gunshots several blocks distant. The roars and bellows of powerful pokemon clashing echoed in the night air, and gouts of fire shot up over the tops of buildings. Police sirens screamed as the officers of the Eleventh hastened to cordon off the fighting, and panic was rising in the streets.

The clash had erupted out of nowhere. Alex and Hierro had just rendezvoused with Detective Reyes to make an arrest on a dream dust supplier when an explosion lit up the sky some ways distant. The police dispatch radio in Reyes's cruiser reported that a building belonging to one of the Baron's shell companies had been attacked, and Sin cutters were now moving on the location. Alex assumed that since Dominion had cemented her hold on the other four boroughs, she was moving on Avenbrooke and using her forces to draw the Baron into battle, where she could cripple his organization as ruthlessly and efficiently as she had the Kuromori.

There was no time to reach out to other heroes for backup. From the sound of the reports, fighting was already intense and only getting worse. Even waiting for Echo or the Phantom to cross over from Ridgewood would just give more time to fan the flames. Alex could only hope that the Ronin was somewhere nearby and willing to help, because whatever was happening needed to be nipped in the bud as soon as possible.

Alex and Hierro alighted on a rooftop that overlooked the battleground, and saw several of the Baron's cutters crouching behind vehicles and pressed into alleyways, taking potshots at the black-clad capos that were hemming them in. Julia Richelieu stood behind an armored truck, barking commands into a cellphone, her Seviper coiling around her heels. Alex ducked into the shadows and surveyed the rest of the Sin force. It didn't seem like any of the other Sins were present, and the capos Pride had brought with her seemed to be mostly from within her own organization. He didn't see any Kuromori ninjas or the tattooed muscle-bound northerners that Greed actively recruited, nor did any of Wrath's ragtag anarchists seem to be in attendance. That, at least, was a small blessing; he need not worry overmuch about bombs or incendiary devices. Perhaps Pride had pulled some of Gluttony's hired muscle to fill out her numbers, but that was nothing Alex and the Eleventh couldn't handle.

A Luxio controlled by one of the Baron's men launched a thunderbolt that arced low to the ground, crackling across the pavement and igniting a bit of spilled gasoline. Two cars nearby exploded into brilliant coronas of fire, and Pride's people hastened for cover.

Police in riot gear appeared at the edges of Pride's forces, drawing fire from her cutters, but they were hesitant to advance. Richelieu's Pyroar stalked forward and expelled a wall of fire on the eastern flank, forcing the police to scramble back as a handful of water types came forward to deal with the flames.

Hierro clacked his beak at Alex and gestured down at the street. Alex nodded and prepared to jump. As much as he didn't relish the idea of saving the Baron's men, the top priority was driving the Sin forces out of Avenbrooke. At the very least, the Baron could be counted on to maintain order in the borough, and Alex's skin crawled at the notion of the underworld falling completely under Dominion's control.

With a wordless battle cry, he and Hierro shot out over the street and came down swinging on a group of cutters closest to the Baron's men. Fire blossomed around Hierro's fists, and Alex knocked two cutters flat with a series of precise punches. A Heliolisk fanned its neck ruff as it gathered a static charge, but Alex stunned it with a hooking roundhouse kick. As the electric type staggered, a Donphan charged out from an alleyway, trampling the reptile under its bulk. The Baron's cutters charged after the ground type, holding aloft guns, machetes and knives.

A scarred man glanced at Alex as he strode by. "You going to get in our way?"

"Let's just get these bastards out of our town," Alex replied. "Those of us left alive can work out our differences afterwards."

The man nodded and whistled to his Crobat. The purple flying type darted through the air, lashing out with the tiny claws at the tip of its wings. "Giordano is on his way with backup," the capo continued as he slashed his machete across the torso of one of Pride's cutters. "If we can hold out until then, he'll kick these bastards clear out of Avenbrooke." As he pivoted on his heel, a Servine seized him in its constricting vines and held him in place long enough for its trainer to open the capo's throat with a backhanded knife slash. The capo's Crobat screamed as it dove at the Servine, only to explode into a fine mist of blood as one of Pride's machine gunners turned its fire on the poison type.

Alex swore as he danced away from the dying man and whistled to Hierro. The Hawlucha bounded over to Alex and took up position at Alex's back, where they could cover each other's blind spots. Hierro's breath came in quick gasps as the two of them fended off attacks on all sides, trying to keep the carnage at bay. Alex scanned the chaos, picking out Richelieu some ways distant. There was no guarantee that taking her out of the fight would get her men to retreat, but Alex figured it was worth the gamble.

With the Baron's capos and Pride's cutters preoccupied with killing each other, he and Hierro could fight their way through the press and distract her enough that she wouldn't be able to coordinate her men. If they managed to take her out, so much the better. Alex clicked his tongue to his partner and gestured with a flick of his chin, and that was all Hierro needed. The two of them barreled through the seething melee of humans and pokemon, vaulting over battling pokemon and dispatching Pride's cutters with quick strikes if they could.

"Hey Richelieu!" Alex shouted. Pride whipped her head around just in time to catch Alex's fist on her cheek, and the blow sent her reeling. "How about a rematch?" Her Pyroar pounced, but Alex cracked it across the snout with his baton. Hierro dropped out of the sky and slammed her Seviper's head into the pavement, stunning the poison type long enough for him to kick it into the Pyroar, and both pokemon went down in a tangle of bodies. Pride reached for her sidearm, but before she could line up a shot, Alex closed the distance between them, seized her wrist and twisted.

With a shocked gasp of pain, Richelieu dropped the gun, and Alex kicked it away, where it was crushed by a lumbering Graveller. "You insolent—" Pride hissed, and Alex tightened his grip on her wrist, feeling her bones shift beneath her black combat armor. She ground her teeth and reared back before slamming her forehead against Alex's. The hero released his grip and staggered backwards as Pride uncoiled her whip.

Alex raced in again, heedless of the ringing in his ears. Pride's whip cracked as it cut through the air between them, and Alex forced himself not to flinch. Instead, he seized the end of the whip and quickly wrapped it around his hand. "You tried this the last time we tangled," he growled. "It didn't work then, and it sure as hell won't work now!" Pride's Pyroar had managed to extricate itself from the Seviper's coils and lunged forward. Alex dragged Pride towards him and circled around her body, putting her between him and the charging fire type. He kicked Pride just below her hip and sent her sprawling forward. The Pyroar stopped just short of charging through his trainer, but the second's hesitation gave Hierro an opening to race in for a spinning double kick that laid the leonine fire type flat.

As it struggled to rise again, a pressurized gout of water shot past Alex's field of vision, and the Pyroar was hurled several meters down the street. Alex whirled around and saw Giordano and Genbu stalking through the police cordon. Giordano had traded his usual ill-fitting suit for a flak vest, and a cold fire burned in his eyes. More of the Baron's capos and enforcers flanked him on both sides, and with a roar they jumped into the fray, paying back Pride's cutters in blood.

Alex turned back to Pride, only to run up against a translucent wall of hardened light. "Not so fast, kid," Giordano barked. "You leave Pride to me. The boss said he'd pay out a million bucks to the man who brings in her head."

Pierre limped out next to the enforcer, and Alex's heart dropped. The esper's arms were lined with black veins, and his neck was similarly marked. When some of Pride's men turned on the pair of them, Pierre thrust out his hand, and another wall appeared, pushing the cutters back. "Just step out of the way, Hawlucha Man," Pierre rasped. "And then everything can go back to the way it should be."

Alex stepped in front of Pride's prone body, but not before making sure Hierro was keeping an eye on her in case she tried to stab him in the back. "You thinking killing her is going to make a difference? If you take her out, Dominion is going to throw everything she has at Avenbrooke! You'll burn the city to the ground for a million bucks?"

"Every man has his price," Giordano replied as he raised his gun. "I'm going to give you three seconds to get out my way before I shoot you too."

"I won't let you do this."

Pierre turned to his Mr. Mime. "Mimsy, if you'd be so kind."

Mimsy grimaced apologetically at Alex before flexing its fingers in front of its face, hurling Alex and Hierro backwards with a psychic shove. Alex slid across the pavement and struggled to regain his balance as Pride leapt at Giordano, a knife appearing in her hand. The hulking man fired off a few shots that went wide, and Richelieu managed to get inside his guard and drive her blade through his body armor, digging into the meat of his shoulder. Giordano bellowed in pain, but before Genbu and Mimsy could respond, the pokemon were attacked by Pride's reinforcements.

Pride herself stalked towards Pierre, who hastily erected a psychic barrier to protect himself. Richelieu flicked her whip, and the crack made Pierre flinch just enough for him to waver, and his wall to fragment. Before he could conjure another, Pride wrapped a hand around his emaciated throat and lifted his too-frail body several inches in the air. "My boss wants to have a little talk with you," she hissed. "She'll make you an offer you simply can't refuse."

"Keep your hands off him!" Alex shouted. One of his batons slammed into the small of Richelieu's back while he brought the other down on the back of her neck. Pride gasped in pain and released her hold on Pierre. The esper scuttled across the ravaged pavement, where Mimsy helped him to his feet. Alex kicked Pride down and leveled his stun baton at the center of her forehead. "Don't touch him again."

"It's always got to be the hard way with you Avenbrookers, huh?" Pride raised a hand to a comm in her ear. "I have the esper, but extraction is proving difficult. Wouldn't mind a little backup."

Alex kicked Dominion's chest again, driving the wind from her lungs. "If you lay a finger on Pierre again, I'll…"

"You'll what?" Pride jeered. "I know your methods, Hawlucha Man. You don't kill. And nothing short of that is going to stop me from seeing this through."

"He won't kill you," someone growled from behind Alex. "Because that's my job." Alex felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder and hurl him backwards. "Leave this one to me, kid," the Ronin snapped as he grabbed Pride by the hair and dragged her to her feet. Richelieu's Pyroar charged at the Ronin, only to be tackled by Muramasa. The Samurott seized the fire type's neck in its powerful jaws and shook the feline back and forth before hurling it contemptuously away. When her Seviper coiled to strike, Hierro was on it, his fists blazing.

"Don't kill her!" Alex shouted to the Ronin. "It'll just make things with Dominion worse!"

"No promises," the Ronin replied, but he settled for driving an uppercut into Pride's solar plexus, rather than decapitating her out of hand.

"By Arceus, if you do, I'll take you down too."

The Ronin's eyes flicked to Alex, and Alex braced himself to fight the other vigilante. "Fine," the swordsman finally spat. "That damn esper is what they want, right? Get him the hell out of here."

Alex and Hierro sprinted towards Pierre, standing over Giordano's bleeding form. The esper's head lolled on his neck, and his eyes were vacant as he held up a shining box of hardened light in the air around him. Mimsy cowered at Pierre's heels, his face buried in his hands. "Pierre!" Alex shouted, pounding on the psychic barrier. "You need to get out of here! Pride is here for you! If you hide, she'll—"

Pierre's head slowly tracked to look at Alex, but there was no intelligence behind the esper's eyes. His gaze was a thousand miles away, and Alex realized the psychic walls around him were an instinctive panic response, rather than a conscious effort. Alex pounded on the walls as hard as he could, but they didn't so much as crack. "Pierre!" he screamed. "Listen to me! If you just come with me, I can help you! I promise, things are different now! I'll make sure no one hurts you again! I can do it! I can save you!" But the esper's mind was too far gone, addled from months with dream dust. Alex threw his entire weight behind a final punch, pouring all of his frustration into the blow, but it only rippled against the translucent wall. This should never have happened, he thought. Pierre should never have been dragged into this.

"On the contrary." A chill went down Alex's spine as he felt an oppressive weight press down on his mind. "Mr. Espalier is exactly where he's supposed to be."

Alex took a deep breath and squared his shoulders before turning around. Dominion calmly strolled through the chaos and bloodshed, the combatants veering away from her like puppets jerked on strings. She flicked her fingers at the Ronin, and he dropped Richelieu with a startled gasp. Alex shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, and saw Hierro puff out his feathers in his peripheral vision. "Leave Pierre alone," Alex said. "He doesn't deserve any of this."

Alex felt Dominion sifting through his thoughts, digging into his memories. He tried to empty his mind, to block her out like Joshua had tried to teach him, but he could tell from the esper's triumphant smirk that he hadn't been successful. "Pierre was your first failure, then?" Dominion said. "The only one you could never save. Yes, passed around from gang to gang, taking on odd jobs, and all he ever wanted was a friend. But you could never be that, could you? Because he was a _villain_. He was on the wrong side, and there was always some excuse why you couldn't be what he needed."

Her eyes flashed gold, and Alex was thrown backwards against Pierre's barrier. Dominion stalked forward, her hair dancing around her head. "So it was always off to asylums, institutions, and hospitals, where they confined him in small, dank cells and treated him like a monster. And you always told yourself it was justified, because he was caught in a system _you_ couldn't fight, something too big for even an up-jumped brat like you to bring down with a few punches." The telekinetic push grew stronger with each step forward Dominion took, and Alex struggled to draw breath as the pressure built on his lungs. "Pierre _belongs_ with me. I can finally be the kindred spirit he needs. Only I can help him out of the pit _you_ cast him into." She snapped her fingers, and Pierre's barrier shattered into glittering dust.

Pierre collapsed in a heap over Giordano's back, and the Baron's lieutenant groaned. Dominion walked past Alex and cupped his face in one manicured hand. "I can heal you, Pierre. Will you come with me?"

The dazed look in Pierre's eyes cleared for just a moment, and he nodded. Dominion smiled and helped him to his feet. "You poor thing. They saw you throw up your walls, but they never understood why. All this time, and no one ever realized that you were an empath. Why, I'm not even sure you did." She handed him off to Mimsy and clucked her tongue. "Even the strongest walls can't keep out all the negative thoughts when they're beating them straight into your brain, and they don't even know they're doing it."

"You signed a contract, Espalier," Giordano gasped. He heaved himself up to his knees, and Alex was amazed to see that he was even breathing after Pride's attack. "You're the Baron's man, from the time you signed that contract until the day you die! That's the deal!"

"The Baron is quickly becoming yesterday's news," Dominion replied. She drew a small sidearm and shot Giordano in the chest. The giant man collapsed again, and Dominion aimed a kick at his head. Alex noted she had traded her stilettos for combat boots. "Mr. Espalier is just trading up." She glanced across the space of calm at the heart of the raging melee and locked eyes with Pride. "Julia, follow me."

As Pride limped towards her, a second gunshot rang out. Dominion staggered as a blossom of blood appeared on her shoulder. "Not another step," Reyes said, his gun smoking. "CCPD. Put your hands in the air!" His Noctowl spread her wings on his shoulder, her eyes glowing crimson.

Dominion gritted her teeth and whirled on the detective. Alex saw Reyes's finger twitch on the trigger, but there was no second shot. "I don't have time for this," Dominion grumbled. Reyes stiffened and turned slowly towards the Ronin. The ghost of a smile played across Pride's lips as she watched Reyes's arm shake while Dominion drew out the moment. "Take your shot, detective. We both know you've wanted your chance at Avenbrooke's most notorious mass murderer for a long time. I'll even hold him still for you." Muramasa growled low in his throat and braced to attack the detective. But for all the Samurott's fearsome power, it couldn't outrun a bullet.

Alex acted without thinking. Before Dominion could give Reyes another mental shove, he tackled the detective to the ground, making the gun misfire. The sound seemed to shock the Ronin out of his trance, and he and his pokemon whirled on Dominion. "Whatever else the Ronin is," Alex said, "he's stood with the heroes. We still need him in this fight." Reyes ground his teeth, but nodded.

The Ronin and Muramasa charged, but Dominion froze them both with a contemptuous flick of her index and middle fingers. She glared at Hawlucha Man, and Alex felt the invisible weight of her gaze bearing down on him. "You," she said, "have been a thorn in my side for far too long. It is clear that Pierre harbors some small affection for you, and so I had thought to let you live this time as a kindness to him. But if you insist on interfering, then you leave me no choice." She brought her gun around and smirked. "I've killed the Hammer and forced Blaziken Man into exile. Tonight, I'll kill two more of Clarus's so-called 'heroes'. I daresay, I'm on a ro—"

Hierro slammed an uppercut into Dominion's jaw, making her teeth clack together. The esper staggered back, clutching her face. "Julia!" she shrieked. "Destroy them!"

Pride nodded. "Lyceus! Tiamat!" Her Pyroar was the first to respond, slashing out at Hierro with glittering claws. The Hawlucha danced backward, trading blow for blow until the fire type scored a clean hit across his chest. Hierro stumbled and fell backwards, and fire pooled in the back of the Pyroar's throat. Enraged as it was, and at that range, Alex knew that a fire attack would be lethal, so he moved as quickly as he could to put himself between his partner and the Pyroar.

He recalled once, it seemed like ages ago, that Jiro had told him that his suit had been designed to be fireproof. He had little occasion to put it to the test, but now was as good a time as any. He spread his arms wide and opened his wings as far as he could, shielding Hierro's body with his own. Hierro's eyes went wide with panic as fire erupted behind Alex, who gritted his teeth against the sudden painful heat on his back.

Jiro had been as good as his word, and Alex was not immediately consumed by the flames. The carbon nanofibers of his suit reflected the heat, but the Pyroar didn't relent. Already, Alex could feel patches of his back growing hotter as the material was compromised. Hierro pressed his claws to the bloodied feathers on his breast, and Alex looked beseechingly at his partner. "Run," he gasped. The edges of his wings had begun to burn, and he could feel his back blistering under the heat. It was possible that patches had already burned away. "Please."

It was then that he heard the rasp of scales over pavement, and Hierro forced himself to his feet. The Pyroar's flames stopped, and Alex turned his head just enough to see Pride's Seviper poised to strike, its violet fangs dripping with venom. Hierro shoved Alex aside and ignited his fists as the serpent lunged, burying its fangs in Hierro's shoulder. The Hawlucha seized up as the poison surged into his bloodstream, but he managed to land one explosive punch that forced the Seviper to recoil. Hierro staggered, and before he could brace himself to fight, the Seviper had brought its poisonous tail around, driving the spiked blade through Hierro's abdomen and wrenching it out. Alex was too shocked to even scream.

Hierro fell to his knees, blood pouring from the wound. His gaze locked on Alex's, and his eyes were wild with panic. "No," Alex whispered. "No, no, no. Hang in there. It's going to… we can… oh Arceus, Hierro, I'm so sorry, I…"

The Seviper drew back again, and Alex knew it was his turn now. His back screamed in pain, but he forced himself to draw his batons and face the poison type. "Bring it on.

A golden blade made of coral pinned the Seviper to the pavement, piercing it all the way through. The Seviper shrieked in pain and tried to sink its fangs into Muramasa, but the Ronin cut off its head as he swept by, felling the beast in a spray of venomous blood. The swordsman swung his sword around and slashed Pride's Pyroar along its flank, making the beast howl.

Alex rushed to Hierro, but a sudden pain bloomed in his chest. He looked down to see a red spot of blood spreading against his dark suit. "What?" Dominion smirked as she lined up her gun for another shot, and the sudden flash of pain came again. Alex dropped to his knees and clutched his chest, trying to staunch the blood. Dominion walked forward and leveled her gun at Alex's forehead.

"Stop," the Ronin snarled. "If you so much as twitch, it's her head." He had his sword leveled at Pride's neck. "I just tempered this blade in Seviper venom. I could kill her with a tiny cut."

"You know I could stop you."

"Not before I moved a fraction of an inch, you psychic bitch."

Dominion glared at him. "You think I give a damn about Julia?"

"I think you care about her manpower. If she goes down, how many of her capos are going to break ranks and take their cutters with them? They fear you, but they respect her."

"It would mean your death, Ronin."

"Yeah, and the Baron would have to drop a fortune on my funeral." The Ronin smiled ruefully. "It's not a bad way to go."

"Marinette," Pride whispered. "You promised me power if I served you. I've kept my end of the bargain."

Dominion's eyes flicked between Alex and Pride. The Ronin shifted his blade. "Leave the boy alone. I'll give you to the count of three. Two…"

Dominion slowly lowered her gun, but Alex barely noticed. His vision was darkening, and his breath was coming in shallow gasps. A small, rational part of his brain knew he was going into shock, but he couldn't remember what he was supposed to do. He couldn't even feel his limbs.

A gunshot sounded behind Alex as Giordano heaved himself up. "Get the hell out of my town." Dominion staggered as a wound appeared on her left leg.

"You insolent—"

Another bang, and a second gunshot wound appeared on Dominion's right leg. She buckled, and a Goethite appeared beside her. As quickly as it appeared, it vanished, taking Dominion along. It reappeared a second later, this time whisking away Pierre, Pride and her Pyroar. Pride's cutters began to retreat, disengaging from the Baron's men as best they could.

Alex fell forward onto the pavement, but his hand reached out towards Hierro. He felt the Hawlucha's claw and closed his fingers around the talons. He heard heavy footfalls rush over to him, nicotine-scented hands feeling for his pulse. "Damn it, detective, call the fucking EMTs!" the Ronin shouted. The vigilante's hands patted around Alex's belt and removed Hierro's pokeball, and Alex felt Hierro's claw disappear from his hands.

"Is the Hawlucha stable enough to transport that way?" Reyes asked.

"It's better than carrying it in my damn hands!" the Ronin snapped back. Alex was lifted up, and he dimly registered the smell of blood, sweat and stale cigarettes in the Ronin's coat. "Hang in there, kid," the older man said softly. "I won't let you go. I'm not losing another one."

Alex must have blacked out, because when he rose to consciousness again, he was strapped down to a gurney in the back of an ambulance with EMTs hovering over him. Everything hurt, but he saw the Ronin sitting just beyond them, his face grim. He tried to reach out a hand, to strain against the straps, but the pain was overwhelming. "H-Hierro," he gasped.

"He's awake!" one of the EMTs said. "Get me a sedative! We can't let him damage himself more!"

"Hierro!" Alex tried to shout as the needle went into his arm. He strained against the restraints, digging gouges into his wrists. "Please, you need to… he's my… Hierro…"

And then everything went black.


	34. Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

The ambient throb of steady pain drew Alex out of unconsciousness. As he struggled to his senses, he tried to take stock of his body. Nothing felt broken, but all sensation was distant and dulled. The fact that he was waking up at all meant he wasn't dead, so there was that.

He stirred, and felt the slow drag of an IV drip in his arm. "Hey, easy," someone said to his left, the voice vaguely familiar through the haze of painkillers. "Don't try to move, you'll bust your stitches." Reyes moved into Alex's field of view and rested a hand on his shoulder. "You had us worried for a bit there, Hawlucha Man."

"Hierro?" Alex croaked, searching Reyes's face for some kind of sign.

"He's alive," the detective said. "And he's stable. But he's in bad shape, worse than you were."

Alex cringed and sank back against the thin pillow. "Where am I?" he rasped.

"We've got you in a private ward at Metro General. We've had you guarded ever since you went into the ICU. The Ronin wanted to be the one to do it, but we sent him off after he got patched up. He was scaring the doctors."

"How long was I out?"

"They kept you under for five days while you recovered. Dominion's a lousy shot, but they were clean hits. Once the surgeons got the bullets out of you, they sewed you right up." Reyes pulled a chair closer to Alex's bed. "While you were in surgery, the docs ran some tests. They told the captain that your body is showing signs of tremendous long-term physical strain. Arceus, kid, how hard have you been pushing yourself?"

"As hard as I need to, to keep the city safe."

Reyes put a hand on his arm. "You've been out of commission for most of a week. Clarus is still standing." He gave Alex's shoulder a squeeze, though Alex barely felt it. "You've got to take better care of yourself."

Alex reached up and felt his face. "My mask… how many people saw me? My secret identity…"

"The captain had to run your face through the system, so he knows. As far as the doctors are concerned, you're just John Doe."

"What about you?"

"The captain didn't tell me, and I didn't ask. I know what you look like under that hood now, but that's about it." Reyes pursed his lips into a thin line. "With that psychic bitch running around, the less I know, the better." He sighed and looked down. "Listen, kid. I'm sorry for what happened back there."

Alex tried to brush off the detective's concern. "We all take a few hits in the line of duty, Reyes. I know what I signed up for."

The detective cut Alex off with a curt wave of his hand. "You and Hierro got hurt because I couldn't do my job. I had Dominion dead to rights, but she twisted me around her finger without breaking a sweat."

"You're hardly the only one."

"If you hadn't stopped me, I would have killed the Ronin, and then she probably would have had me kill you too. It was just so damn _easy_ for her to—"

"Reyes," Alex broke in. "You're not the first person Dominion has hijacked. It takes years of training to resist an esper with even half of her power. I don't blame you for what happened, and I doubt Hierro or the Ronin do either."

"You're a more generous man than I would be in your position."

Alex struggled to push himself up into a sitting position again. "Comes with the territory, I guess. Heroes have to moral paragons and whatnot." Alex smiled through the fresh wave of pain his movements brought on.

Reyes rolled his eyes and patted Alex's knee. "Whatever you say. But I owe you one for this. You need anything, all you have to do is ask."

"I'll put it on your tab. But actually, there is one thing." Alex gestured to a folded wheelchair in the corner of the room. "Can you bring me to Hierro? I need to see him."

Reyes shook his head. "I wish I could, kid. But the doctors say they don't want you being moved around for another little while. I'll come back again tomorrow and see what they have to say. I promise."

Alex continued to lapse in and out of consciousness, marking time by the passage of the sunlight and shadows on the walls of his room. The time he spent while conscious was split between gritting his teeth at the various aches and pains of his body and worrying about Hierro. Despite his doctors' continued insistence that he was in no shape to be moved, Alex tried to convince each of them that his condition would be markedly improved if he could just see his partner. At some point, a basket of fruit had arrived from Isabelle, accompanied by a small card wishing him a speedy recovery, in a somewhat roundabout fashion. Alex figured she meant well behind all the berating him for rushing in like an idiot, and after all, she had told him that she would personally settle all of his medical expenses, since he was probably too much of a moron to have good insurance.

The next time he was conscious, a card had arrived from Edgar, expressing his regret that he couldn't come in person, since he was presently occupied consolidating his power within Harcourt Ltd., and to visit a John Doe in Metro General might allow certain underworld elements to compromise both of their secret identities. It did, however, extort him to call Edgar on his private line if he needed anything to speed along his recovery, and mentioned that he had tried to cover Alex's hospital bill only to find that Isabelle had beaten him to the punch.

When he woke around midmorning, he saw that the chair Reyes had sat in several hours previously was now occupied by the Ronin. The scarred silver-haired man was glowering at a trio of nurses. "Good, you're awake," the Ronin said. "Tell them to buzz off."

"He's a friend," Alex managed to say. "Really, it's fine." When the nurses left, the Ronin shook his head and reached into the pocket of his jacket for a cigarette. "I don't think you're supposed to do that in here," Alex said.

"Yeah, and?" the Ronin replied, raising his lighter. Alex gave him a hard look, and the swordsman relented. "Fine, I'll do it outside." He rolled his eyes. "Damn heroes, I swear."

After a moment of sitting in silence, Alex cleared his throat. "Thanks for coming. And for saving me."

"Yeah, well, taking care of a whole borough on my own is too much work."

"Reyes mentioned that you wanted to stay behind and keep watch while I was out."

The Ronin leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. "Just wanted to be thorough. Who knows who Dominion's sunk her claws into? I've been coming back every day to make sure no one gets you while you're out."

"Apparently you kind of freak out the doctors."

"More like I freak out the cops. They know I saved their asses, but as far as they're concerned, I'm just as bad as the Sins. Worse, probably. They just don't like that they can't figure out what side I'm on."

"Whose side _are_ you on?"

The Ronin was quiet for a minute, and Alex could tell he was mulling over his words. Finally, he shrugged. "You know I don't give a damn about all this heroes and villains, cops and robbers crap. As far as I'm concerned, there's just people who can get hurt and people who are doing the hurting. And then lately, there's been people who are getting between the bad guys and the victims. That's the kind of person I want to be, someone who's going to get in the way of the next mean bastard and make him think twice about hurting someone who can't protect themselves.

"I used to think I was on my own side, but you have a point with all your do-gooder self-help motivational crap. We _are_ stronger when we stand together, and we need to be pretty damn strong to knock this Dominion bitch down a few pegs. So if anyone asks, I'm on your side, kid." The Ronin held up a finger. "But let me make something clear. _Your_ side, not Blaziken Man's side, or Volcarona Mask's, or the police, or whoever's. You've stuck your neck out for me a couple times, so I'm going to return the favor."

"Avenbrooke's gotta stick together."

"You're damn right." The Ronin pushed a few strands of limp silver hair back from his forehead. "Once you get back on your feet and you go to pay Dominion back with interest, make sure to count me in." The swordsman grinned, stretching his lips back to expose his canines. "It'll be a damn fine way to die."

"Who said anything about dying?"

"Everyone's number comes up sometime. If you're going to go, you might as well go out doing something worthwhile." Before Alex could respond, the Ronin pushed himself to his feet and crossed to the door. "I've had Muramasa keeping an eye on your buddy downstairs. Seems like he has a bit of a soft spot for the little guy." The Ronin touched two fingers to his brow in salute before walking out. "When he wakes up, give him our best."

The next day, Alex had managed to level himself up to a sitting position and move his limbs without debilitating pain. As he took stock of his various aches and tested his extremities, he heard someone knock on the doorframe. "Some mentor you turned out to be," Kaito Kuromori said as he slouched through the door. "But whatever man, it's cool, I'm used to fending for myself."

"Sorry." Alex grimaced. "Have you been… is everything, uh…?"

"Hanzo and I are keeping an eye on Avenbrooke while you're laid up," Kaito said. "So just focus on getting better. If you're going to teach me how to be a great hero, I need you in top form." He sat down next to Alex's bed and took in the assortment of IVs and monitors that Alex was hooked up to. "Are you feeling… um, okay?"

"Under the circumstances," Alex gestured down at his bandaged torso. "I'm doing as well as can be expected. I won't be vaulting off tall buildings for a little while though."

"I wouldn't worry about it too much," a new voice said from the hall. "The new kid does your job better than you, birdbrain." The Shadow slunk around the corner and picked up an apple from Isabelle's fruit basket. "You look like shit."

"Your concern is touching."

Kaito nodded to Bri. "Hey, Shadow."

"Hey, new kid."

Alex glanced between them. "You know each other?"

"Shepherd Matt told me he had a new ward who was slipping out at night," Bri replied. "I've been keeping an eye on him as a favor."

"Gave me a hand once or twice," Kaito added.

Alex shook his head. "Of all the people in Clarus City, you had to fall in with her?"

"And what's that supposed to mean, birdbrain?"

"I mean that you're a bad influence."

"Oh. Well, yeah, you're probably right." Bri reached out and touched Alex's shoulder, and her expression softened. "When I heard what happened, I was really worried. I'm sorry I couldn't make it sooner, but I needed to be sure it was safe to see you. If Dominion had her cutters prowling around, it wouldn't do anyone any good if we both ended up dead."

Alex inclined his head. "I get it. How are things out in the city right now? Everyone else has been cagey with me."

Kaito and Bri shared a look. "It's been quiet," Kaito finally said. "But it's _too_ quiet. Everyone's circling around and planning their next move. Dominion hasn't made any aggressive plays, but she's cracking down on the territory she does have. I've heard that the Cavalier has stepped up their game and are keeping the Kuromori in check on their side of the river."

Bri nodded. "The Eleventh and the Baron's men took pretty bad beatings, so they're licking their wounds. Captain Ito from the Sixth has diverted some of her manpower from Greenpoint to help cover the Eleventh's beat just in case, but the Baron is keeping a low profile anyway. The Sins haven't made any more trouble in Avenbrooke as far as I know." She leaned in. "Just between us three, I heard that Dominion got shot. The rumor mill says you were squaring up with her, so did you see what went down?"

"I know Detective Reyes from the Eleventh clipped her shoulder," Alex replied. "Then Hierro and I got beat up pretty bad, so I'm a little hazy on the next bit, but I think Giordano got her too."

"Oh man," Bri said. "I hope Pirozzi stuck Bruce somewhere safe, because Dominion's going to be on the warpath when she gets back on her feet."

"What about the other heroes?" Alex asked. "Are they holding the line?"

"Far as we can tell. The Phantom and Echo are coordinating more with Ito in Greenpoint to keep the streets clean," Kaito reported. "Volcarona Mask has uptown and midtown secure, and Captain Unova's stepped up his patrols downtown. Haven't heard much from the Gunslinger, but I'd guess he's backing up Cavalier same as usual. Still, one guy taking potshots doesn't make the headlines when there's a knight storming around fighting ninjas every night."

"I've heard that the Dryad has been raiding Sin safe houses all over the west side," Bri said. "Freelancers like me are packing up shop across the river and going to ground. As far as the underworld is concerned, once her grass types move in, there goes the neighborhood."

"I heard she leveled a couple warehouses the Sins were using to run guns, and then used some Sasaki money to buy up the land and start a new arboretum right in the heart of the industrial district." Kaito said, his voice carrying an undercurrent of awe. "The Sins cleared out of the nearby complexes pretty quick once a couple of her Torterra put down roots."

"Speaking of Sasaki," Alex said, "is he still…?"

"Yeah," Bri sighed. "Blaziken Man seems content to sit up in his tower while the rest of the city goes up in smoke." She didn't try to hide the bitterness in her tone. "I know we're not technically on the same side or whatever, but it seems like life was a hell of a lot better for everyone when Dominion was still worried about Blaziken Man kicking her ass."

Alex chewed his lip. A part of him wanted to defend his mentor, because of course no one else could understand what had happened in Dominion's bunker during the heroes' raid, and how Jiro had convinced himself that his failure to resist the esper there was what had caused Johannes's death. But he couldn't help but agree with the thief. Jiro Sasaki had set up Blaziken Man as a symbol of hope for Clarus City, but when the city needed him more than ever, he disappeared into his tower above the clouds, leaving everyone else to deal with the mess he had left behind. Alex wasn't sure if the selfishness or the cowardice bothered him more.

Because he had been in the bunker too. He had felt the suffocating pressure of Dominion taking control of his mind just like Jiro had, and if he got right down to it, Johannes's death was just as much his fault as it was Jiro's. But Alex didn't have a skyscraper to hide in, and when Dominion showed up on his home turf, he hasn't hesitated to square up with her again, even if he knew damn well he couldn't win.

Well, Blaziken Man had claimed the whole of Clarus City as his home turf, and the Sins had been running roughshod over it while he hid away. And maybe it was unfair of him, but Alex was sure that if Blaziken Man hadn't been moping around his tower, Dominion would have thought twice about trying to invade Avenbrooke, and maybe Hierro wouldn't have ended up half dead.

Alex sank back against his pillows with a sigh and closed his eyes. Bri sat up and Kaito turned to the monitors. "Are you okay?" the young man asked. "Should we call someone?"

"I'm fine," Alex said. "At least, I'm not in pain." He slowly opened his eyes. "Can I ask a favor of you two?"

Kaito and Bri both nodded. "Sure, just name it," Kaito said.

"Bring me that wheelchair. I need to go see Hierro." As the young ninja stood and unfolded the wheelchair, Alex slowly tried to stand up. When he winced in pain as his legs touched the ground, Bri took hold of his arm and helped bear his weight. "The doctors haven't let me see him the whole time I've been here," Alex said as he struggled to his feet. "They say I'm not strong enough to move around. And I haven't been able to convince anyone to take me to him."

Bri helped him into the wheelchair and maneuvered his wheeled IV drip over to his left side. "And you figured that if there was anyone who would aid and abet you in ignoring your doctors' orders—"

"It would be you two, yeah."

As Bri pushed Alex out into the hallway, the police officer stationed outside to guard his room stood to attention and moved to interpose himself in front of the wheelchair. "It's okay, Simmons," Alex said. "They're not abducting me. I just want to go see my Hawlucha. I'll be back in a few minutes. Or you can come along, if you want." Simmons nodded and fell into step behind them.

As they approached the elevator, a nurse rounded the corner and narrowed his eyes at their procession. "You shouldn't be out of bed," he said.

"I need to see my partner," Alex replied.

Kaito stepped out in front of the nurse and squared his shoulders. Despite being a full head shorter and significantly more wiry than the nurse, he didn't back down and fixed the nurse with an icy glare. "Are you going to try and stop us?"

The nurse just sighed and waved them on. The four of them boarded the elevator, and Alex pushed the button that would take them down to the pokemon treatment floors. When they arrived, Simmons directed them down a maze of corridors to a wing dedicated to the treatment of flying type pokemon.

Another police officer stopped them at the door, but waved them through when she saw Simmons accompanying them. They finally found Hierro in a small ward that he shared with an injured Togetic. The Hawlucha lay unmoving on a narrow hospital bed, an oxygen mask fitted over his beak. Simmons hung back a respectful distance, and after a moment, Bri and Kaito stepped back too.

Alex wheeled his chair as close to the window as he could and rested his forehead against the glass. From this distance, he could see Hierro's shallow breathing fogging the mask with each of his partner's exhalations. The starched white sheet covering Hierro was pulled all the way up to his shoulders, hiding the wounds he had taken defending Alex.

Alex felt his throat constrict as he watched his catatonic partner. Even though Hierro had been stabilized, there was no telling when he would wake up. Even without the extensive injuries he had suffered, the Seviper venom had done significant damage to Hierro's nervous system, and even the natural healing abilities that all pokemon had were hard-pressed to deal with the cocktail of toxins he had been infected with.

Alex clumsily maneuvered his chair to the door of the ward, startling the Togetic inside as he tried to fit the bulky wheelchair through. When he finally managed it, he jerked his IV in behind him, forcing down the fresh jolt of pain in his shoulder. When Bri made to follow him, Alex held up his hand. "Please, just give me a moment alone with him." Alex saw the thief nod and stand back. He closed the door behind him and rolled carefully over to Hierro's bedside. The Togetic nervously flapped its wings and chittered at him, but it seemed to sense Alex's single-minded focus on its roommate and soon settled back down.

Alex slid his hand under Hierro's bed sheets and found the Hawlucha's talons. He carefully interlaced his fingers around Hierro's and bowed his head over his partner, tears welling in his eyes.

"Come back to me, Hierro. Please, I need you to come back."

Hierro slept on, unresponsive, his chest rising and falling slowly. Alex tightened his grip on his partner's hand as teardrops began to dot the sheet.


	35. Chapter 35

CHAPTER 35

Condensation beaded under Alex's hands and dripped slowly down to the cardboard coaster, already liquefying on the old wooden table. Alex had never been one for drinking, but he figured he could nurse a beer or two at O'Flanagan's to while away a few hours, and maybe watch a few pokemon battles on the courtyard patio. O'Flanagan's Pangoro lounged in the shade, sprawled on its back with one paw outstretched. A few smaller pokemon squabbled in the center of the packed-earth patio while their trainers drank and chatted. The small pokemon weren't really battling, just blowing off steam, but Alex carefully tracked their movements all the same. A few larger pokemon skulked around the fringes of the courtyard; Alex saw a regular's Slowbro, along with a Heracross, an old scarred Charizard, a Poliwrath, and a Lurantis, a rare sight that definitely belonged to a tourist.

The sun was past its zenith, and the shadows in the courtyard were lengthening as the afternoon dragged on. Alex sank listlessly back in his chair, doing the mental arithmetic to see how long he could reasonably stay at O'Flanagan's and still have money to pick up groceries on the way home. After leaving the hospital a week and a half ago, he had withdrawn from his classes at AIT, ostensibly to return home to Icirrus City in Unova. The registrar had been understanding, letting him know that his scholarships would still be available to him if he were to re-enroll in the future.

With the war in the underworld building to a fever pitch, many of those who could afford to leave Clarus were jumping ship, at least until the dust settled, and Clarus's various universities and colleges were the hardest hit. Even so, plenty of people were willing to stick it out, and if one were to walk down the streets of any borough in the city, life would seem to be going on more or less as normal. Long-time residents had seen underworld shake ups and slugfests between criminals and the city's defenders before.

In any event, Alex wasn't about to turn tail and run home to Unova. He had only withdrawn from his classes because trying to juggle his academic responsibilities with his physical well-being as Hawlucha Man had become untenable, and his stint in the hospital only served to drive that point home. Jiro had never removed him from the Sasaki Industries payroll even after his internship ended, so even with the loss of his academic funding, the small stipend that dropped into his bank account every two weeks had been enough to keep a roof over his head and food on his plate. When it came down to it, if he had to pick between being Alex Alvarez, student, and Hawlucha Man, hero, he would pick Hawlucha Man every time.

If only he could actually _be_ Hawlucha Man.

Hierro was still laid up in the hospital in a medically-induced coma to prevent any further damage to his body if he tried to move. According to Hierro's doctors, it seemed that Pride had fed her Seviper a specially-designed diet that made the serpent's venom incredibly potent and dangerous. That, coupled with the other wounds Hierro had suffered in the fighting, had nearly killed him, and the Hawlucha's scrappy attitude meant that each time he woke he tried to get up and seek Alex out to get back in the game, even though his body wasn't sufficiently healed.

But even if his partner had been in fighting trim and perfect health, Alex couldn't be Hawlucha Man. The suit that Jiro had designed for him had been damaged beyond repair by Pride's Pyroar. Alex worried that now that the underworld had entered into a virtual arms race, if he went back to the materials he used to design his original suit, the next time he wound up in dire straits, the suit would fail him, and he probably wouldn't escape with his life. Until he could figure out a solution, Hawlucha Man was indefinitely benched.

Alex downed the last of his beer and was about to wave over a server to order another when a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and a battered leather jacket pulled out the chair across from Alex with his foot. He plunked down two shot glasses and a bottle of O'Flanagan's top-shelf whiskey. "This seat taken?" Before Alex could respond, the man sat down, grabbed the bottle poured a generous measure into both glasses. He slid one across the tabletop to Alex and raised the other to his lips. "Drink up, Hawlucha Man."

Alex's chair scraped against the ground as he started to rise, but the strange man raised his hand in a placating gesture. "Take it easy. I'm just here for a chat and some company. I get too maudlin when I drink alone. I'm in Clarus on a little personal business, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to say hello."

"Who are you?" Alex hissed. "How do you know who I am?"

"Well, I've got two good eyes in my head, that's how. I've seen you masked up in the papers, and it didn't take much to match up your body type and face shape with your civilian identity after I catalogued the recorded sightings of Hawlucha Man around Avenbrooke and noted that he's usually spotted in this neighborhood early in the evening and late at night. I figured your home base would be around here, and that narrowed my search quite a bit. I staked things out for a day or two, and voila! It wasn't too hard to arrange to run into you."

Alex was still braced against the table, ready to fight or run. "You still haven't told me who you are."

"The name's Cole Culain. You're probably too young to remember when I was in the papers, but maybe I was in your history books at school."

Alex fell back into his chair. " _The_ Cole Culain? From the Skirmishes? You're the freaking Firebra—"

Cole cut Alex off. "I've been called a lot of things," he said. "War hero, war criminal, traitor, coward. But I'd rather not be called _that_ name again."

"Right. Sorry. Uh, sir." Alex glanced at the Charizard lounging some ways distant. "If you're you, does that mean he's…"

Cole snapped his fingers. The Charizard looked up and lumbered over, resting his head on Cole's shoulder. The older man reached up and scratched the orange dragon's jaw. "Say hello to Prometheus." Prometheus huffed out a plume of smoke, and rumbled deep enough to shake the glasses on nearby tables in what seemed to Alex like a draconian purr.

Alex could tell his eyes were as wide as saucers. "Wow…" All throughout his childhood, he had heard stories of the semi-legendary Cole Culain, the war hero who had appeared about twenty years before Alex was born to defend Unova in the series of brief and brutal conflicts now known as the Skirmishes that tore across the region. The Kantonian had decisively turned the tide of many battles as he and his Charizard had streaked down from the sky like a pair of avenging angels. Unova's Kantonian aggressors had done their best to slander his name as a traitor to his country of birth, but Unova had hailed him as their adopted hero.

But once the fighting had ended, the Firebrand had vanished just as quickly as he had appeared. The rumor was that he had retired to a quiet life in some small town in Sinnoh, or at least that was the cover he used while he continued to fly missions for some sort of global peacekeeping outfit. But he had vanished from Sinnoh too, and for years after that, everyone assumed that this time Cole Culain was gone for good, and possibly even dead.

"Are you here to help us fight Dominion?" Alex asked.

Cole shook his head and poured another shot of whiskey. "I gave all that up a long time ago." He said it with such finality that Alex didn't dare to press further. "It was time to pass on the torch. My hero days are behind me. I'm just another rootless now."

The rootless movement had sprung up when Alex was young, mostly among veterans of the Skirmishes. After experiencing the horrors of war, many of the men and women on the front lines had found it impossible to settle back into civilian life, so they packed their bags and wandered around the world with their surviving pokemon partners, in what some said was a misguided attempt to recapture the innocence of their childhood pokemon journeys. By now, the term had come to apply to any adult pokemon trainer who gave into their wanderlust and decided to have a second adventure with pokemon in their middle age.

Alex periodically saw some rootless adults loitering around Clarus City while they restocked on supplies, and they generally were better groomed and less vacant-eyed than the usual transient population. But to think that Cole Culain himself had been hiding in plain sight among the rootless for all these years!

Alex raised his glass and tapped it to the older man's. "Well, it's an honor to meet you all the same, sir. And you too, Prometheus. I, uh, had a poster of you two in my room as a kid."

Cole laughed and threw back another shot. "What kid in Unova doesn't?" He sighed and set his glass down, making no move to pour himself any more. "I had hoped to catch you and your partner together, but I heard what happened. Is he…?"

"He'll pull through," Alex managed to say. "It's taking a while, and there have been complications, but he'll… he'll make it. Hierro's tough. He's a fighter."

"He's your best friend, huh?"

"Yeah."

Cole ran his hand along Prometheus's neck. "I know what it's like when your partner's gotten hurt taking a hit for you, and the guilt that comes with feeling like you got off easy." The Charizard pressed his bulk closer to his trainer, and Alex could feel the heat radiating off the dragon's body even from across the table. If Cole was at all uncomfortable, he didn't let it show, and Alex assumed that after all of the years of their partnership, Cole had grown accustomed to the heat the same way Alex could respond to the slightest twitch of Hierro's muscles when they sparred. Their bond ran so deep as to be almost telepathic and symbiotic.

And that just made Hierro's absence hurt all the more.

Prometheus rumbled something deep in his throat, and Cole nodded. "Yeah, I know we're burning daylight." He dropped the whiskey bottle into his backpack and stood, slinging the bag over his shoulder. Prometheus growled again and cast a significant glance at Alex. Cole shrugged and turned back to the younger man. "You know how I mentioned I'm in the city on some personal business? I'm trying to reconnect with someone I used to know. Prometheus says I ought to invite you along for, uh, moral support." Prometheus growled and narrowed his eyes. "Well, okay, more like to make sure I don't flake out. Truth be told, I was only staking you out because I was putting this meeting off. Now that we've had a chance to meet up, I guess I'm all out of excuses."

Alex shrugged. "Sure, I'll come along. Where are we headed?"

"Downtown." Cole fished in his pocket and drew a few crumpled bills from a cracked leather wallet. He set the money down on the table and gestured for Alex to follow with a jerk of his chin. "I'll have to put Prometheus in his ball while we're on the subway, and I think he's worried I'll try to sneak off before I see this through."

"Is he right?"

Cole considered this as they stepped out of O'Flanagan's, pausing just long enough to tip his head at O'Flanagan behind the bar. The burly proprietor nodded back, and then they were out in the afternoon sun and walking towards the closest subway entrance. "I don't know if I would," Cole finally said. He palmed a pokeball, and Prometheus disappeared in a beam of red light. They descended into the oppressively hot subway tunnel and took their place among the press of people waiting on the platform. "I've been putting this off for a while, but I finally worked up the nerve to come to Clarus and settle accounts. I'd like to think that I've got the guts to face this, but I've been known to cut my losses and run before."

The train arrived in a rush of hot wind and screeching brakes. They boarded and took hold of hanging straps as the subway shot off to the west. As they burst from the subterranean tunnel and began their ascent up the Concord Bridge, Alex turned his attention from the wine-dark smear of the Umber River below them to Cole, expecting the man to say more. But the man had lapsed into a pensive silence. The jovial mien he had affected at O'Flanagan's had evaporated, and all that was left was the weary man behind the mask. Now Alex could see how deeply Cole's face was carved with graven lines, and how old his eyes seemed. Cole leaned heavily on the subway strap, his shoulders slumped as though carrying a heavy burden.

The train rattled its way across the Concord Bridge on its lowest tier, while automobiles and foot traffic crossed above them, all under the shadow of the Concord's sweeping suspension cables. Then they were underground again, hurtling through a tunnel lit only by the harsh fluorescents inside the train. After a few stops, Cole seemed to rouse himself, and the mask slid back on. "Come on, we'll need to transfer here," he said.

As they waited on a lower platform, Alex turned to his companion. "You seem to know your way around the city pretty well. Have you been to Clarus before?"

"Twice. Once was a long, long time ago; I was probably younger than you are now. And then again a few years back. I was trying to have this same meeting, but I lost my nerve and ran off." He ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair and flashed a sheepish grin. "Prometheus was pretty pissed at me for dragging him all this way for nothing, which is why he's being so insistent this time."

The second train arrived, and after a shorter ride, Cole once again signaled for them to get off, leading Alex into one of the few residential neighborhoods left in the downtown sprawl. Once they were back out in the sun, Cole tossed out Prometheus's ball, and the Charizard fell into step just behind them, taking care to keep his flaming tail clear of the flowerbeds that lined the street.

After walking a few blocks, Cole drew up short and stared up at the door of an apartment building that had once been rather grand and fashionable but, like so many things in Clarus City, had declined as the rest of the city had been built up. Alex saw a sign fixed underneath the street number and peered at the logo. "Wait a minute," he said. "Aegis Security? You're here to talk to the Iron Maiden?"

Cole swallowed and nodded. Prometheus huffed out a smoke ring.

"You really need this much backup for a meeting? You know she's going to charge you an arm and a leg, right?"

"No, kid. This _is_ the meeting." Prometheus pushed Cole forward, and he slowly walked up the steps. He pressed the doorbell for Aegis Security and stepped back. After waiting a few seconds he turned around. "She must not be here. It's probably for the best. Why don't we just—"

The door to the building swung inward, revealing the scowling proprietor of Aegis Security.

Cole smiled and opened his arms. "Hi Gwen."

"Dad?" Gwen gasped.

"Dad?!" Alex cried.

Gwen reared back and decked Cole across the face. "'Hi Gwen'? I don't see you for over ten goddamn years and you think you can just show up on my doorstep with a fucking 'Hi Gwen'?"

"I see you're still a little sore over how we left things," Cole said.

"Still a little… you're damn right I am!" Gwen roared. Prometheus rumbled, and Gwen glanced over her father's shoulder and waved. "Prometheus, it's nice to see _you_ , but Dad and I have a few things to sort out before I come give you a hug, okay?" The Charizard seemed appeased by this, and sank back on his haunches.

Gwen seized the front of Cole's shirt and hefted him up. "The last time I saw you, Mom had just fucking _died_ , you tried to leave me the house so you could go off on some pilgrimage to Arceus knows where, I'd just washed out of the Sinnoh league because I got too caught up in your secret agent bullshit, and…" She pushed her father away and shook her head before dashing the tears from her eyes. "And I was just sixteen, Dad. I was sixteen and I didn't know how any of this shit worked, and you just left me to fend for myself."

Cole took her into his arms and patted her back. "I know. I should have been there for you, and all I could do was run away. I'm sorry, Gwen. I can't go back go back in time and fix what went wrong, but—"

"Why not?" Gwen demanded. "Why the fuck not? I thought the fucking Firebrand could do anything!"

"Turns out there's a lot I can't do," Cole replied. "But I can face the things I did wrong all those years ago and try to set them right."

"How?" Gwen rasped.

"I thought we could start by talking?"

"I don't want—"

"I brought a bottle of whiskey."

"Okay, maybe we can talk."

Cole let her go, and Gwen staggered down the stairs to throw her arms around Prometheus's neck. The Charizard flared out his wings and wrapped them around her in a protective cocoon. From within the embrace, Alex heard Gwen mutter, "I've missed you, big guy." Prometheus responded with a deep, rumbling purr that made Alex's teeth rattle. When Gwen finally pulled away, she drew up short. "Hawlucha Man? What the—"

"I, uh, kind of ran into your dad earlier," Alex said. "I mean, I didn't know he was your dad. Or that we were coming here. I don't want to intrude or anything, so I can just…"

"Oh Arceus, just come in and have a fucking drink," Gwen said. "If he dragged you this far, you might as well."

As they walked up the stairs, Cole raised an eyebrow. "You two know each other?"

"We're professionally acquainted," Gwen said. She led them through a dimly lit hallway and past a stairway. "My office is a little cramped, so why don't we chat back here? The only reason I stay in this dump is because it's the one place in the city that has a damn back yard." They emerged in a small courtyard behind the tenement building, where a hulking Aggron slept in a carefully manicured rock garden.

Prometheus perked up immediately, and Cole spread his arms wide. "Maximus!" The Aggron roused himself and blinked in disbelief before letting forth a grating roar and charging forward. Alex winced and shrank back, but the gigantic steel type pulled up to a stop just short of Cole and the older man threw his arms around Maximus's neck. Prometheus's tail thumped against the ground as he and Maximus regarded each other. Cole circled the steel type, running his hands along Maximus's armor. "Why, he's looking incredible! His plating is as lustrous as ever, and his body," he rapped a knuckle against Maximus's stony flank. "So tough!" He smiled. "Thanks for looking after him, Gwen."

The mercenary shrugged. "Yeah, well, he was Mom's, after all. The last thing of hers I have left."

"She'd be proud of you."

Gwen scoffed. "Dad, have you seen how I live? I'd be lucky if she was only mildly disappointed."

"Well, _I'm_ proud of you."

Gwen looked like she was ready to come back with a snarky comment to deflect the praise, but she drew up short and was, for once, speechless. "I… really?" She shook herself and gestured towards a slightly rusted wrought iron table and a few wobbly chairs. "Why don't you sit down? I'll get some glasses for us and, uh, we'll talk, I guess."

Cole and Alex sat down as Gwen disappeared inside. Prometheus and Maximus circled and playfully snapped at each other before settling down to compare old battle scars. "You could have told me we were coming to see your daughter," Alex said. "Hell, you could have told me _Gwen Culain_ was your daughter."

"We do have the same last name. That's never been a secret."

"Well, yeah, but I always figured it was, like, some different Culain."

Cole's eyes twinkled, but he said nothing. When Gwen reappeared with three glasses, he reached into his bag and plunked the whiskey bottle from O'Flanagan's down on the table. Gwen glanced at the label and whistled through her teeth. "That's a bit fancier than my usual cheap swill, old man."

"I figured I'd pick up something worth celebrating with, provided everything went well."

"Yeah? And if it didn't go so well?"

"Then I could console myself with the best booze I can afford."

"I'm starting to remember why I didn't bother talking to you for so long." But Gwen smiled as she said it and poured out three glasses. She raised hers and tilted it towards Cole. "For… something, I guess."

Cole nodded. "For something."

The three of them clinked the glasses together and drank. For a time, they just watched Prometheus and Maximus as the shadows in the courtyard lengthened, and the silence changed from tense to companionable. Cole refilled their glasses, but Alex was already starting to feel a little lightheaded. After drinking a few sips to be polite, he quickly made his exit to allow Cole and Gwen some time to themselves as they made tentative small talk.

As he made his way back to the subway, he stopped to rest on a bench in a nearby park to gather his composure. A gaggle of school kids raced past, and Alex found himself smiling. Even the city teetering on the brink of an all-out gang war wasn't enough to stop these kids playing. As Alex tried to stop the world from spinning, he let their voices filter over to him.

"Let's play heroes!"

"Yeah!"

"I'll be Echo!"

"I'm Blaziken Man!"

"I call Hawlucha Man!"

"No fair! You were Hawlucha Man last time!"

"Why don't you be his partner?"

"Fine, but I get to be Hawlucha Man next time."

Alex leaned forward and watched one of the kids hold his arms out at his sides and run around making _whoosh_ noises while another girl ran behind him flapping her arms like wings. He found he had a lump in his throat, and had to try hard to swallow it down and take a deep breath.

He was tired of moping, he realized. He wasn't going to let himself be like Cole, and run from his problems. The Firebrand might be retired, but Hawlucha Man sure as hell wasn't. Hierro or no Hierro, it was time Hawlucha Man took to the rooftops again and got back to protecting the city.

He had been beaten down, but Hawlucha Man wasn't done yet. As he thought about it, he realized that he could bring hope back not just to Avenbrooke, but to all of Clarus City too.

But to do that, he was going to need a new suit, some help, and all the favors he had left to cash in. It was time to make some phone calls.

 **A/N: Cole Culain was a quasi-self insert character from the first few serious Pokemon fics I wrote, back in circa 2010. Those fics still exist somewhere out on the internet, though I think you would be hard pressed to find them (and equally hard pressed to find any literary merit to them). I had at one point in the early 2010s planned to do a few more fics starring Cole and his myriad adventures detailing what he means when he talks about being a "war hero, war criminal, traitor and coward", but I came to realize I wasn't actually that interested in writing them after all. Then he was going to be Gwen's father, back when Gwen was the protagonist of a Diamond Nuzlocke run I never quite felt like writing up.**

 **The tl;dr here is that Cole is something of a legacy character for me, and while I doubt any reader of Hawlucha Man (are there even readers of Hawlucha Man? I suspect not many) would be familiar with him, he represents a certain point in my writing journey that I look back on fondly, and I wanted to give him a proper send-off in at least some fashion, and this seemed a good place to do it. This chapter was really just a bit of self-indulgence for me (perhaps more apt to say more self-indulgent than** _ **usual**_ **), so if this fic actually does have readers, I can only hope you allow me to indulge myself.**


	36. Chapter 36

CHAPTER 36

Alex dozed in an uncomfortable molded plastic chair at Hierro's bedside. He had been up half the night waiting outside the operating theater while Hierro had undergone an experimental surgery to remove the last of the Seviper venom in his system. The poison had remained in Hierro's bloodstream despite the doctors' best efforts, and so it had been determined that the lengthy surgery was Hierro's best hope of recovery. Fortunately, the surgery had been successful, but the doctors wished to keep the Hawlucha in the hospital under observation to ensure that he recovered and that Hierro didn't overtax himself upon release.

Alex roused himself and smoothed his sleeping partner's feathers, doing his best to filter out the noise of the hospital in the background. Hierro twitched in his sleep, his eyes moving behind their lids. As the morning sun streamed through the window, Alex heard someone knock on the wall behind him. The Ronin leaned against the doorframe, a paper cup of the hospital's awful coffee in his hand. "How's he doing?" the vigilante asked.

"He pulled through," Alex replied with a smile. "The worst is over, the doctors think. He just needs to rest now and his body will take care of the rest."

The Ronin nodded. "Good to hear." He held out the coffee to Alex. "You want to get going?"

Alex forced the coffee down and winced at the foul taste of charred grounds. He'd been drinking a lot of Metro General's coffee lately and, contrary to what the nurses had told him, the taste had not grown on him. He ran his hands through Hierro's feathers again as the Ronin swaggered over to the Hawlucha's bed. How long 'till he's back on his feet?"

"Soon, the doctors hope. Maybe a little longer before he's fighting fit again."

"Told you he'd pull through, kid. That bird's a fighter."

"Yeah. But I'm wound tighter than a Spoink's butt."

"Good thing we're going to go work off some of that stress, huh?"

Alex grinned and downed the last of his coffee. "Hell yeah. Let's go."

He and the Ronin strode out through the pokemon treatment wing and out through the lobby. The Ronin ambled through the parking lot and pulled the keys to his motorcycle out from his jacket pocket. The vigilante had parked the bike alongside an SUV that was dangerously close to double parking, and as such had left a margin of empty space in the parking spot.

"Anything to save a few bucks?"

The Ronin smirked. "You know how expensive it is to park around here? If this guy is going to park like an asshole, I might as well take advantage." He opened a side compartment on the motorcycle and pulled out a helmet with a tinted visor. "I've only got the one, so you can wear this, since you're the goody-goody law abiding type."

Alex slid on the helmet. "Probably for the best. If I'm seen with you, it could really hurt my squeaky-clean image."

The Ronin rolled his eyes and swung onto his bike. "Shut up and get on, kid."

The motorcycle roared to life between Alex's legs, and he wrapped his arms around the Ronin's waist as the grizzled vigilante gunned out of the hospital parking lot and headed west. The streets of Avenbrooke flashed by in Alex's peripheral vision, and before he knew it, they were hurtling across the Concord Bridge. The Ronin drove recklessly, weaving between cars and trucks, but he did so with a kind of careless grace, knowing exactly how much he needed to accelerate to cut in front of a car, or how much space to weave as he wove between two sixteen wheelers.

"Are you crazy?" Alex cried as they nosed in front of a moving truck.

"Just enough to be interesting!" the Ronin called back.

And then they were over the bridge, darting through traffic in midtown Clarus and swerving around taxis. As they forged a path deeper in to the city, the buildings around them rose higher and higher, the steel and glass canyons casting the streets into shadow. As they drew closer to the city's core, the traffic dried up, aside from a few drivers making deliveries.

When they reached Sasaki Tower in the heart of midtown, the Ronin braked hard, spinning the bike in a wide drifting turn before coming to a stop at the curb. Alex staggered off the bike. "You drive like a maniac!"

The Ronin calmly fed a few coins into the meter. "That's why I gave you the helmet, kid." He glanced over his shoulder. "Hey, how long do think this is going to take? I don't have a lot of change."

"If everything goes according to plan, you could probably leave in like half an hour?"

"The meter goes in twenty minute chunks. I'll give it forty, I guess." He undid the clasps that kept his broadsword's scabbard attached to the side of his bike and slung it over his shoulder.

The glass doors of Sasaki Tower slid open as they approached, and Alex saw the receptionist at the front desk glance up at them. He gestured for the Ronin to follow him as he made his way to the glass turnstiles that barred the way to the elevators. After quick glance from the receptionist to a burly security guard, the man interposed himself between Alex and the Ronin, but the Ronin pushed past Alex and stuck out his chin, daring the man to challenge him.

"I don't think you two belong here," the security guard said, taking in the Ronin's worn clothes.

"That so?" the Ronin drawled, settling his weight on the balls of his feet and reaching over his shoulder for his sword.

"Easy," Alex admonished. "We've got an appointment."

The guard smirked. "With who?"

"With me."

The security guard whirled as Noriko Takeda stepped into the lobby, her heels clacking rhythmically against the tiled marble floor. She tapped something on her tablet, and the glass turnstile swung open. "This way, gentlemen."

The security guard backed down in the face of Sasaki Industries' COO, and Alex and the Ronin followed her to the bank of elevators. Noriko tapped a sequence of commands on her tablet and glanced at Alex. "You really think this will work?"

"Volcarona Mask thinks it will," Alex replied. "And that's good enough for me."

"Then why isn't she here?"

"Because we figure this is the one thing I can do better than her."

The elevator arrived, and the three of them stepped inside. The doors closed with a barely audible hiss, and Alex felt his stomach drop as the elevator whisked them up to the top floors of the tower as fast as industrial safety standards would allow. They arrived at a small landing, where a reinforced steel door was the only thing to break up the monotony of the neutral tone walls. Noriko inclined her head to Alex. "The floor is yours, Hawlucha Man. My brother and I have been trying to get that door open for weeks."

Alex stepped towards a small metal panel on the wall next to the door. "Identify yourself," a robotic voice intoned from a hidden speaker.

"Hawlucha Man," Alex said.

There was a pause, and a light on the panel flashed red. "Access denied."

The Ronin stepped forward, as though he could force the door open with his bare hands. Alex held up a hand. "Override protocol: Puppeteer. Access code: 'tangled strings'."

Nothing happened for several heartbeats. Alex was beginning to think that Jiro had changed the contingency plans that Isabelle had discovered among the Hammer's effects after his death, but then a light on the panel flashed green. "Lockdown override. Access granted."

Alex let out a breath he hadn't know he had been holding, and Noriko's eyes widened. This had been their final bet to drag Jiro out of his self-imposed exile. Isabelle had learned that before the raid on the Sin compound, Jiro had installed a special system override for the Hammer to use if Jiro had been compromised by the esper. Alex had remembered Jiro mentioning something to that effect, and after Isabelle and Lakshmi admitted to not knowing anything about it, Isabelle had taken it upon herself to look through the Hammer's workshop and computer. If it hadn't been for a hastily scrawled post-it note on the Hammer's desk, they never would have learned of the override code, but as it stood, Alex was grateful for their good luck.

The door slid open, revealing Jiro's private apartment in disarray. Dirty plates and scattered papers covered every available surface, but Alex paid it no mind. A hunched shape hauled itself off a couch as Alex strode into the room, trailed by Noriko and the Ronin. "Hawlucha Man?" Jiro Sasaki said. "But how did—"

Before he could say anything else, Alex punched him.

Jiro fell to the floor, one hand holding the side of his face. Masakado hauled himself up from a nearby swivel chair, but Alex saw a flash of light in his peripheral vision as the Ronin summoned Muramasa. The hulking Samurott interposed himself between the Blaziken and Alex and growled low in his throat.

"You bastard," Alex spat. "You selfish coward!"

"Alex, please understand, I—"

"You've been up here for _weeks_ ," Alex said. "The city's gone completely to hell, and Dominion's running roughshod over all five boroughs. People are _dying_ , Jiro!" Alex paused to catch his breath. "I… I was in the hospital. They could have… Hierro nearly _died_. And you didn't… you weren't…"

Jiro struggled to rise, but Alex kicked him in the chest, knocking the wind from his lungs and sending him back to the floor. "All of us have been fighting as hard as we can, risking our lives just to hold the line," Alex snapped. "But it's not enough. Even if we beat back everything the Sins throw at us, we're still losing the war. The city needs a symbol of… of something. Something to believe in. It should have been you, but you weren't _there_!" Alex watched as Jiro seemed to deflate even further, curling in on himself.

Masakado moved to help his trainer, but Muramasa moved into his path again, his low growl growing even deeper and more threatening. There was a ring of metal as the Ronin drew his sword and moved beside his pokemon.

"We needed you, Jiro. Isabelle, me, the other heroes, the whole city."

Jiro shook his head. "After what happened to Johannes, I realized that I'm not cut out for this. I can't be the leader I made myself out to be. I'm no hero. I'm just a pretender in a fancy metal suit."

"No," Alex growled. "You're Jiro Sasaki. Blaziken Man. You made a promise to Clarus City, to protect it from the bad guys and to lead its heroes to victory, no matter what."

"That's not me anymore. I'm giving it up."

"Like hell you are."

Jiro slowly started to get to his feet. "I'm done, Alex. I'm putting the armor away."

Alex waited until Jiro was halfway up before decking him hard enough to make his knuckles hurt. He stood over Jiro with his fists balled. "You don't _get_ to put the armor away," Alex said. "Not until this is finished. You started this fight, and you have an obligation to see it through. You can't set yourself up as the city's protector and then bail once the going gets tough. That's not what a hero does."

Jiro tried to crawl away from Alex, but Alex drove a kick into his abdomen. "Either stand up as Blaziken Man, or don't stand up at all!"

Jiro's eyes hardened, and his jaw set. He heaved himself to his feet with a roar and punched Alex across the face. Alex reeled a few paces backward and grinned. "That's what I'm talking about!"

"You don't get to talk down to me like that," Jiro hissed. He squared his shoulders and brought his fists up. "I may not be Blaziken Man anymore, but I don't have to take this from you!" He lashed out with a punch, but Alex sidestepped and caught the older man's fist. He tracked down Jiro's arm and pivoted, using Jiro's weight and momentum against him and sending him careening into the couch. Jiro stumbled over the back, and the Ronin scoffed as he struggled to his feet. Alex saw something flicker in Noriko's eyes, almost cracking her stoic visage.

"You're getting rusty, old man. Maybe you ought to get the suit out after all." Alex smirked. "If you can't even handle me, what are you going to do when Dominion shows up here?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Are you kidding? If an upjumped kid from Avenbrooke and a grungy vigilante can get through the security around your fortress of solitude, it's going to fall apart like wet paper when Dominion decides to come for you." Alex shrugged. "Whatever else happened at the compound that night, you bloodied her nose, and she's going to want to settle the score. Once she checks off a few more things on her to-do list, she'll be on your doorstep, whether you retire or not. So either you can sit up here moping until she comes around to tie up some loose ends, or you can finish what you started, put on the damn suit, and take the fight to her."

"I…"

"For Arceus's sake!" Alex cried. "The Jiro Sasaki I idolized wouldn't have pulled this crap. What happened to that guy five years ago after the Crown Royale bombing, the one who said he'd take on all seven Sins himself if the police weren't going to do anything about it? What happened to the only man that Marcus Braun feared? What happened to the guy who was willing to charge right into Dominion's bunker with no backup because he was afraid the people following him might get hurt?

"What happened to Blaziken Man, huh? Because all I see is a pathetic coward, a selfish bastard who's willing to let good people and pokemon die just because he lost _once_."

Jiro's expression darkened and he swung out at Alex again. This time, Alex didn't dodge, and simply brought his hand up to catch Jiro's fist, closing his fingers around the older man's in an iron grip. Jiro winced in pain and glanced towards Masakado. The Blaziken vaulted over a chair, only to be tackled out of the air by Muramasa and pinned to the ground. Alex tightened his grip and pushed, forcing Jiro to his knees. He didn't let go until he felt the small bones in Jiro's hand start to shift and pop under his fingers.

When he disengaged, Jiro bowed his head. "If you want to quit, then quit," Alex said. "The rest of us are going to keep fighting, even if you've given up. But if Dominion comes for you, you're on your own." He started to turn, but Jiro raised his left hand.

He flexed his fingers, and something whirred on the opposite side of the room. A red and gray gauntlet shot across the apartment and affixed itself to Jiro's hand, the repulsor on the palm humming with latent power. Jiro swung out with a left hook, and Alex dropped his weight to duck under the punch. Alex heard a hum, and another gauntlet shot across the room, affixing itself to Jiro's right wrist.

The powered gauntlets supplemented Jiro's strength, and the other man had the advantage of height and reach. For most people, that would have been enough to end the fight then and there, but Alex had been the smaller, weaker guy in plenty of dust-ups, and he'd only gotten better at grappling since becoming Hawlucha Man. When you went up against a bigger opponent with a longer reach, you had to get in close, to rob him of the advantage and maybe even turn it into a handicap.

He slipped inside Jiro's guard and tracked outside, seizing Jiro's arm above where the gauntlet ended. The larger man couldn't reach all the way across his body to fend Alex off with his other hand, so Alex took his opening and elbowed Jiro in the ribs. As Jiro staggered away, Alex pivoted into a roundhouse kick, but Jiro threw up his gauntleted forearm to block.

"Kid," the Ronin growled. "Your stitches…"

"They took 'em out last week," Alex replied through clenched teeth.

"Oh. Well, carry on."

The steel back plate of Jiro's armor flipped across the room and anchored itself to Jiro's back. When Alex came in again for another flying kick, Jiro spun and presented his armored back to Alex as his chest plate flew into place and engaged with a hiss. As Alex continued to rain blows on Jiro, more pieces of his armor flew up from around the room and attached themselves to Jiro's body. Soon, the suit's pauldrons, leg pieces and greaves had all attached themselves to the other components.

Alex retreated a pace as Jiro grabbed his beaked helmet from atop the apartment's refrigerator and slammed it onto his head. The visor slid down, and the eye lenses flashed. Jiro settled into a ready boxing stance, but Alex spread his arms wide in surrender.

"Doesn't look like you're ready to hang up the suit."

Jiro looked down at himself and flexed his fingers. The repulsors on his palms hummed as energy from the suit's power cells coursed through them. "I suppose not."

"Feels good, huh?"

Jiro's visor lifted, and he smiled. "It does. Maybe… maybe I was wrong."

"Sir," Noriko said from the doorway. "Does this mean we have you back?"

Jiro nodded. "Yes. I'm back. I don't think I'm suited for retirement anyways."

Noriko raised an eyebrow, as close as she ever got to genuine expression. "Wonderful, sir. Shall I schedule a press conference to deliver the good news?"

"Too tame. If Blaziken Man is going to blast back onto the scene, I've got to do it in style." He turned to Alex. "What do you say? Are you ready to suit up with me?"

"Uh, yeah," Alex said. "About that… I'm going to need a favor."


	37. Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

Adrenaline pounded in Isabelle's veins and she leapt and pirouetted through the press of clashing humans and pokemon. Aethon whipped by overhead, summoning a scathingly hot gale with his broad orange wings. The shouts of police officers and the roars of enraged pokemon were interspersed with pops of gunfire and the occasional concussive boom.

It rang in Isabelle's ears like a symphony.

She spun her quarterstaff over her head before sweeping it low and taking out three Sin cutters at the knees before switching her grip and jabbing the blunt end into a Scyther's thorax. Aethon's fiery scales rained down around her, setting the pavement ablaze and buying Isabelle a second to catch her breath. She dragged the tip of her staff through the burning scales, igniting a chemical compound on the tip and lashing out with the blazing weapon, driving her foes back. Smoke stung her eyes, but Isabelle hardly noticed as the exhilaration of the fight consumed her.

The Sins had overplayed their hand, trying to attack city hall in broad daylight. The local police precincts had mobilized and were managing to hold the line, but they had been flagging before Isabelle and Aethon had showed up. The sight of Clarus City's interim top hero had put the wind back in their sails, and the police had managed to hold out long enough for Echo and the Phantom to come back her up.

The Phantom appeared at her side, heralded by his Dusknoir's spectral hum. "Fall back," the tuxedoed hero said as Gregor launched shadowy orbs into the fleeing Sin cutters. "We can't over-extend ourselves."

Isabelle wanted to snap back at him, tell him to stop bossing her around, but she knew he was right. They were here to hold the line at city hall, not chase down every bastard that managed to slip away. The Phantom twirled his wooden cane, striking a Ratticate about the snout while a shadowy expanse spread behind Gregor. The ghost type reached out his hand to her, and Isabelle grabbed it.

She felt a tug in the pit of her stomach, and for a disconcerting instant her vision went black as a sulfurous wind blasted her face. And then the darkness receded as quickly as it had appeared, and they were back behind the police line. "Ugh," Isabelle groaned. "I don't know how you can do that all the time. It makes my skin crawl."

"You get used to it." The Phantom signaled to Echo. "We're all clear! Time to go fortissimo!"

Echo stood atop the stairs of city hall, flanked by her Exploud and Loudred. "ALL RIIIIGHT!" she roared, her voice amplified by her pokemon. She raised her fist to the sky and brought it down to strum a chord on her red guitar. Her platinum blonde hair whipped around her face as she bared her teeth in a rictus grin. "Come on, b-boys! _FOR-TIS-SI-MOOOOOOO!_ "

Her pokemon braced themselves on the steps and opened their mouths wide. Isabelle heard the hollow pipes within their bodies whistle as they sucked in a breath, only to expel it an instant later in a tremendous rush of air and sound. The concussive force blasted out over city hall plaza, halting the Sin advance in its tracks. The police in riot gear braced themselves behind their shields, even though the worst of the blast passed over their heads. "Shield w-wall!" Echo shouted. "Shield wall! F-Form up!"

A few officers turned to their sergeant, and the man nodded. "Do it!"

"On m-my mark!" Echo shouted. "Ready? _CHARGE!_ "

"Go, go, go!" the sergeant barked. Isabelle and the Phantom raced just behind the armored officers, crouching behind the protective bulwark of the riot shields. A pack of baying Houndoom and Arcanine loped alongside them, flames pooling in their jaws. When the Sins opened fire, Echo and her pokemon ducked behind the columns that lined the municipal building's façade. "Aethon!" Isabelle screamed, hoping her partner could hear her over the tumult.

A beam of light pierced the smoke, and her Volcarona descended through the clouds, wings ablaze. His arrival threw the Sin forces into chaos just as the police line crashed into their front ranks. As the police broke to the sides to allow their pokemon through, Isabelle jammed the tip of her staff into a crack in the pavement and heaved her weight up, vaulting over the backs of the officers just in front of her and crashing down behind the Sin lines. Edgar appeared at her side, stepping from the shadows as he drew the concealed blade from his cane. Riot squad officers set on the Sins with their clubs, closing in to make the Sins armed with firearms reluctant to shoot at the risk of hitting their pokemon or comrades in arms. Sin forces armed with machetes, metal pipes or other melee weapons were hammered hard by the police, battered with shields and clubs while the police pokemon set upon those commanded by the Sins, keeping them from aiding their human partners.

"Reinforcements incoming," the Phantom said as he sidestepped a Sin cutter and slashed his blade along the man's hamstrings. The Sin fell to the ground where one of the Phantom's Haunter fell on him.

"How many?" Isabelle asked as she swung out with her quarterstaff, knocking the cutter's Mightyena about the muzzle and sending the canine running with its tail between its legs.

"Enough to be a pain in the ass."

Isabelle ground her teeth and spat out a curse. "Does Echo—"

"She knows. If things look bad, she'll sound the order to retreat."

"If you think I'm going to run away from a fight like this, you're stupider than you look!"

The Phantom smirked. "I figured. The retreat is to get the police out of our way so we can take them down _our_ way, without worrying about anyone else getting caught in our crossfire."

Isabelle tossed her quarterstaff up, snatched two flash grenades from her utility belt, and hurled them into the crowd of Sin enforcers. The blast dazzled the criminals and gave the Phantom's army of ghosts an opening to sweep in and hold them long enough for the police to intervene. "Damn right," Isabelle growled, catching her staff as it fell. "We've got to show them that heroes like us aren't going to back down. Especially now, Clarus City needs to know that it can still bet on the heroes it has left to fight to the very end!" She pivoted on the tip of her toes and spun around, taking out a quartet of Sin fighters in one move.

A series of pops echoed across the plaza, followed by a rush of air. Forte shot out over the crowd, propelled by his powerful legs and a blast of concentrated air from his pipes. As the Exploud descended towards where the fighting was thickest, Forte unleashed a sonic assault that drove the Sin forces to their knees. As he hit the pavement, he cushioned his fall with a second blast of air that impacted hard enough to splinter the pavement beneath him. As the Sin cutters and their pokemon reeled, Forte drove his right fist into the palm of his left hand and summoned an electric charge. The bristle-like hairs along his arms stood on end as static crackled in the air around him. With another concussive blast pushing him forward, Forte drove into the crowd of Sin fighters, blazing bright as electricity lit up his fists.

As the Exploud forced his way deeper into the crowd, the Sin ranks closed around him, hemming him in. Isabelle was about to signal to Aethon to go to his aid, but a high pitched hiss cut through the sounds of battle as a dark shape plummeted through the air. Crescita spread her wings to pull out of her dive and unleashed a deafening pulse of sound just over Forte's head. The Noivern shrieked as she spiraled through the air, laying down cover for Forte while the Exploud drove the ground forces back.

"Reinforcements incoming!" one of the CCPD officers shouted. More Sin cutters poured in from the surrounding streets, pokemon baying and howling as they joined the fray. The police lines buckled under the renewed assault, and sergeants bellowed orders as the police scrambled to consolidate their lines. Isabelle saw several officers fall as they were mobbed by the Sin forces, and she jumped into the fight with renewed vigor, battering her foes with her staff. The Phantom shouted commands to his ghosts as they swooped and dove around him. Isabelle tried to call out to the tuxedoed hero as a Pignite charged him from behind, but a Haunter burst out from under his cape and grabbed the fire type in its claws, hauling it off while the Phantom didn't even break stride.

As the police scrambled, a piercing guitar chord rang out. " _LAAADIES AND GENTLEMENNNNN!_ " Echo shouted above the din, her words amplified by Mezzo. " _WELCOME TO THE DOWNTOWN THROWWWWDOWNNNN!_ " She played another chord. "THE HEROES OF CLARUS CITY ARE COMING TO YOU _LIVE_! _AND WE'RE NOT BACKING DOWN!_ "

Mezzo, Forte, and Crescita roared in unison, three thunderclaps that echoed across the plaza and froze the Sin forces where they stood.

"We got a license to rock!

Shake up the whole block!

Make a heavy shock!

 _BECAAAAAUUUUUUSE…"_

Echo's hair whipped around her face as she threw everything she had into playing her guitar, working with Mezzo to generate concussive sound waves that lifted the cutters from their feet and sent them flying through the air.

"WE ARE ROCK TRASH!

WE GOT A LUST FOR LIFE

THESE CRAZY FIGHTS MAKE US FEEL ALIVE!

WE ARE ROCK TRASH!

WE'RE GONNA BASH

WE'RE GONNA SMASH

UNTIL WE _CRAAAAASH_! YEEEEAAAAH!"

She flashed her teeth in a manic grin. "SO COME ONNN! GET FIRED UP AND _KICK_! _SOME_! _ASS_! LET ME HEAR YOU!"

Several police officers cheered, though they could barely be heard over the din. The Sin advance seemed to have lost some of its forward momentum, and the police had gotten their second wind. The Phantom raced by Isabelle, his sword flashing. "Get a move on, Izzy. Echo's playing her heart out, so we've got to do our part."

Isabelle scowled and sprinted after him. "Like I haven't been carrying you the whole damn battle!" They fell in together, driving a wedge straight into the heart of where the Sin forces were thickest. Aethon, Gregor, and the rest of the Phantom's ghosts buzzed around them, picking off cutters and pokemon that were out of the heroes' reach. Isabelle felt the thrill of battle rise up in her, and adrenaline pounded in her ears in time with Echo's music. Her heart sang as she let her body flow into the rhythm of combat, striking down foes left and right.

In battle, she was free from all of the uncertainty that had plagued her since Johannes's death. Here and now, she could prove to herself that she _was_ Clarus City's greatest hero, its mightiest protector, the one who could vanquish all of its enemies.

Isabelle heard a rush of wind and felt the ground tremble as Forte crashed down behind them. The Exploud gave them a toothy grin as he generated more electricity around his fists, and Isabelle felt her hair stand on end as the air began to reek of ozone. Gregor appeared between Isabelle and the Phantom, and the atonal humming that always accompanied the Dusknoir grew in intensity. The ghost inclined his head to Forte, tacitly signaling that the humans were protected from his sonic blasts by the Dusknoir's brown note.

"Phantom!" someone shouted from the press. "I've been looking for you!" A man with a Doublade wrapped around his arms shoved through the Sin cutters and fell on the Phantom with a roar. "This time, I'll defeat you!"

The Phantom brought up his blade and pushed back against the swordsman's attack. His sword and the Doublade clanged together as the Phantom and the swordsman engaged and disengaged, each one plying his opponent to try and find an opening. "This time? Have we fought before?"

"Have we…" the swordsman spluttered. "How do you not remember? You put me in Redstone!"

"I've put a lot of people in Redstone," the Phantom glibly replied. "So I'm afraid you'll have to be a bit more specific."

"I'll make sure you never forget the name of Gian Genovese again!" the swordsman roared. His Doublade buzzed as the tassels around his arm tightened. Isabelle saw the veins on Genovese's hands turn black as he and his pokemon melded their minds, but she didn't have time to dwell on it as a pair of vines shot out at her. She jumped back and batted them away with her quarterstaff as the swordsman's backup approached. An Electivire barreled at Forte, and the Exploud grappled it to a standstill. The electric current around Forte's hands crackled as he made contact with the Electivire, the sparks making the electric type's fur glow.

"Yes, Tolya!" a hulking, tattooed man shouted. "Drink it all in!"

The Electivire smirked as he absorbed Forte's power, pushing back harder on the Exploud. Forte dug in his heels and took a deep breath, making his pipes whistle. The Electivire had just long enough to realize its mistake before Forte unleashed a point-blank sonic boom that sent the Electivire flying back into its trainer, pinning the tattooed brute beneath its furred bulk.

A nearby police officer went down as a woman with multi-colored hair slammed the blade of a knife up through his armpit. She cackled as her Carnivine savaged one of the police Machoke and strangled a Kadabra with its vines. Isabelle growled and hurled a flashbang at the grass type, blinding it long enough for the Kadabra to free itself and hurl a weak psychic pulse at the Carnivine before teleporting away. The Carnivine released the Machoke, but Isabelle could see she had been too late for the fighting type.

With a flick of her staff, she sent the woman's knife clattering away and whistled to Aethon. "Let 'em have it!" The Volcarona descended and unleashed a column of blistering hot air on the cutter and her pokemon. The woman's cheap formaldehyde jacket began to smolder as the Carnivine visibly wilted under the assault, but before Aethon could finish them off, a Skarmory dove down and tackled the Volcarona, battering him with rattling wings.

Isabelle snapped her fingers at one of the Phantom's Haunter. "Hey you! Get me up there!" She extended her hand, and the ghost type seized her wrist, dragging her aloft. As they passed the Skarmory, she extricated herself from the Haunter's grip and dropped onto the steel type's back, making it lose significant altitude. "Don't mess with my partner!" Isabelle snapped as she wrestled with the bird, trying to force it to the ground.

The Skarmory crashed, and Isabelle jumped away. A cutter ran to the Skarmory's side and drew a gun from beneath his coat. "Vito, get up!" he ordered as he lined up his shot. Aethon swept down and unleashed a spray of blazing scales from his wings, distracting the man while Isabelle closed the distance and wrestled away his gun.

Two flashes of light materialized across the plaza and resolved themselves into a pair of towering Steelix. One of them lashed out with its tail and struck a nearby office building, crashing through the structure and making it list dangerously towards the street. With a shriek of rending steel and crumbling stone, the top half of the building slanted at a sharp angle before collapsing. CCPD and Sin alike vanished in the rubble as the crash reverberated throughout the plaza.

Even Echo and her pokemon were momentarily silenced as Steelix bellowed and began to thrash again.

"Oh hell no," Isabelle growled. "Phantom, can you handle these clowns on your own? I've got to stop those two from rampaging."

The Phantom disengaged from Genovese and kicked out his opponents kneecap. "Go for the one on the right. I'll have Felix and Farrah contain the one on the left for now." He signaled to a Chandelure and Lampent that were creating a fiery cordon around a group of cutters, and at his command, the two spectral pokemon whisked themselves away towards one of the Steelix.

Isabelle jumped onto Aethon's back, and the Volcarona shot into the air, winging his way towards the Steelix on the right. Isabelle clenched her teeth as Aethon looped around the serpent's head, its beady eyes lazily tracking their movements.

"Hey, big ugly!" Isabelle shouted. "Ready or not, here I come!"

She jumped from her pokemon's back and hurled a pair of flashbangs into its eyes as Aethon summoned a cyclone of flame before dipping down to catch Isabelle as she fell. The Steelix roared, and the fires dissipated. Its tail lashed back and forth, sending the cutters behind it running for cover. "Again!" Isabelle said. "I'm gonna stop that thing in its tracks! They're all counting on me!" She could do it. She could save everyone, stop the attack, be the hero the city needed. If she could just figure out how to take this thing down, she could—

Isabelle whipped her head around as she saw two shapes moving in her peripheral vision. They impacted with the Steelix's head one after the other, making it reel from the hits. One of them, moving too quickly for Isabelle to get a bead on it, jumped from the Steelix to the ground in a series of agile leaps and made a beeline towards a particular cutter. The second figure stood atop the Steelix's head and flexed the fingers on its right hand before slamming its palm down on the armored carapace.

A brilliant pulse of light and heat flashed once, twice, three times, each flash followed by a thunderous boom. The Steelix groaned as it collapsed, and the armored figure atop it jumped clear of the crashing behemoth. Two gouts of flame issued forth from the figure's feet, providing a burst of speed and maneuverability as it careened towards the ground. As the figure passed by, Isabelle caught a glimpse of a red beaked helmet.

"Arceus," she gasped. "He's back."

Isabelle heard a screech, and the Skarmory from before shot up from the melee below and slammed its bulk into Aethon. The Volcarona reeled through the air, furiously beating his wings to right himself. Isabelle clutched the leather flying harness as tightly as she could, not having had time to secure herself with a carabineer. "Aethon!" she shouted as the Skarmory executed a tight turn for another pass. "Get to the ground! I'm just going to get in your way if you have to fight with me on your back!"

Aethon promptly stooped into a dive, and Isabelle held her breath as the ground rushed up below them. When she judged they had come in close, she braced herself against her partner's back and pushed away, releasing her hold on the harness. She landed lightly on her feet and glanced up at the Volcarona. "Lead that metal bastard away and try to do something about the other Steelix! I can take care of myself here!" Aethon buzzed and shot off into the sky, unleashing a fiery gale on the Skarmory as it closed in.

Isabelle tore her eyes from Aethon and drew her quarterstaff as the fighting surged around her. "There you are," someone said behind her. Isabelle spun and saw the Skarmory's trainer force his way through the crowd, followed by the knife-wielding woman and her Carnivine, with the hulking brute bringing up the rear.

"Damn it, Eddie," Isabelle muttered. "You said you could handle them."

The Skarmory's trainer drew a small firearm from under his coat, and Isabelle grabbed a flash grenade, ready to stun him before he could fire off a shot. But much to her surprise, the man just pointed the gun skyward and fired off a flare round that arced over the plaza and rained down iridescent sparks.

The brute smirked. "We just split Petrovna's reward three ways now, Sal? Gian wasn't here to get the girl."

"Don't count your Torchic before they hatch, Viktor," the leader admonished. "We have to keep her busy until she gets here. Can't split the bounty if we never get it in the first place."

"Keeping her here isn't a problem!" the woman growled as she gestured to her Carnivine. The grass type's lower half contorted as thick vines shot out from beneath it, weaving and snaking through the air in an attempt to tangle Isabelle's limbs. Isabelle drew her staff and batted the questing vines away and hurled the flashbang into the Carnivine's fanged maw, momentarily stunning the grass type.

"Is that the best you got?" Isabelle taunted as she raced towards the leader, the one the brute had called Sal. "You should really know better than to clue me into your plans, morons!" She pivoted on her heel and drove her fist into the side of Sal's face, bowling him over. When the woman rushed her, knife at the ready, Isabelle thrust out with her staff and with a contemptuous flick of her wrist knocked the blade from the woman's hand and followed up with a pair of spinning roundhouse kicks that caught her across the abdomen. She landed and used her momentum to pivot towards the brute. "Think you got what it takes, big guy?"

The brute shrugged. "Not me, no." Too late, Isabelle realized that static electricity was crackling in her hair, and she had just enough time to think _Oh crap,_ before three hundred pounds of muscle and yellow fur tackled her. "Well done, Tolya!" the brute roared as the Electivire stood over her, electricity crackling around its fists. Isabelle tried to rise, but the electric type placed a heavy foot on her ribcage and pressed down.

"You bastard," Isabelle hissed. "I'm not going down like this!" She reached for her belt grabbed her last three flashbangs. With a roar, she pulled the pins and hurled them upwards before averting her eyes. As soon as she felt the Electivire's foot move, she rolled out from underneath it and sprang forward on the balls of her feet, throwing all of her mass behind a punch to the middle of the electric type's face. The flash grenades and the unexpected strike were enough to knock the Electivire on its rump, and Isabelle let a defiant roar force its way out of her chest.

"When are you bastards going to learn?"

"Not bad, little girl," someone said from behind her. "But you will not beat us."

Isabelle spun and scowled. "Greed."

Anya Petrovna leered down from atop a pile of rubble, and her Ursaring crouched just below her. With a click of Petrovna's tongue, the Ursaring jumped down to the ruined floor of the plaza and growled. "Tear her limb from limb, Stepa!" Petrovna roared. " _Squash her like the insect she is_!"

"Like hell you will!" Isabelle roared. As she raced forward, she grabbed her fallen quarterstaff and spun it around her head. "How many times do I have to tell you clowns? _I'm Volcarona Mask, bitch! You can't even touch me!_ " The Ursaring swung out, his claws glinting in the flat, dusty light. Isabelle dropped her weight and slid underneath the furry, muscle-bound arm and drove the butt of her staff into the center of the golden circle of fur on the Ursaring's chest. The pokemon whimpered as the wind was driven from his lungs, but before he could retaliate, Isabelle had ducked under his arms again and had vaulted onto his back, and as the Ursaring reared up, she jumped to Greed's perch, her fist raised and ready to strike.

Petrovna saw it coming, and was ready for it. As Isabelle drew level with her, she swung out with a steel-toed combat boot and caught Isabelle in the chest. Isabelle coughed out a breath as she lost her jump and plummeted to the ground, landing hard and with none of her usual grace. Petrovna drew her sidearm and took aim. "I'm going to enjoy this. I have been waiting for a very long time."

"Then keep waiting!" A flash of crimson and white collided with Greed, knocking her from the rubble and sending her crashing down beside Isabelle. The new fighter spread their arms wide, and two sails of shimmering fabric beneath their sleeves snapped out to catch the wind, slowing their descent and allowing them to alight gracefully atop Greed's old perch. When Petrovna stirred, the figure in red jumped again and delivered a kick to her ribs, sending her down. They drew a pair of batons from a belt around their waist and spun them experimentally while bouncing on the balls of their feet. "Who's next?"

"No way," Sal muttered as he got shakily to his feet. "They said you were out of the game. But you… you're…"

"The amazing Hawlucha Man!" Alex said with a grin. "Did you miss me?"

"You!" the brute snarled. "Because of you, we all went to Redstone!" He pulled a knife from under his coat and charged, but Alex casually turned and hurled one of his batons overhand. The metal rod hummed as it spun end-over-end, and when it collided with the brute, he crumpled as he was shocked by an electric current. When Alex's back was turned, the Carnivine trainer reclaimed her knife and ran in for a chance to strike, but Alex nimbly sidestepped and tapped his remaining baton against her side, and she fell with a shriek. Alex held out his hand to Isabelle and pulled her to her feet.

"About time you showed up, birdbrain," she said. "Where's your partner?"

"Still on medical leave."

"Ugh. If I have to be saved by one of you, I'd rather it be the competent one."

Greed's Ursaring snarled as it lumbered to its feet and charged at the two heroes. "I think we may need to work together on this one," Alex said. "I'll set him up, you knock him down."

"That's what I do best!"

They ran in together, and Alex hurled his second baton at the Ursaring's face. Unlike the first throw, which had tumbled through the air, this one flew straight and true like a javelin, striking the Ursaring on its snout and delivering a powerful jolt through its body. Isabelle switched her grip on her quarterstaff and drove it into the normal type's stomach. It worked just as well the second time as it had the first, forcing all the wind from the Ursaring's lungs as it reared back. Isabelle gritted her teeth as she bounced on the balls of her feet and sprang up, delivering an uppercut to the Ursaring's chin and making its mouth snap shut. The normal type whimpered, but didn't go down.

Isabelle cursed as Alex shook his head. "You sure this is what you do best?"

Greed heaved herself up. "Stepa won't be beat by the likes of you!" She reclaimed her gun and ejected a jammed bullet. "Your return is short-lived, Hawlucha Man! You have thrown away your weapons, and you're as good as defenseless!"

"Think so, huh?" Alex replied. He flexed the fingers of his left hand. "Don't you know that any hero worth his salt always has a few tricks up his sleeve?"

There was a _thunk_ as something collided with the back of Petrovna's head, knocking the Sin commander off balance. The object hurtled past her, and Alex raised his hand to catch his humming baton. He stretched out his right hand, and the other baton sailed towards him as well. "I brought more than just a new suit! Check out my baton-arangs!"

"Nope," Isabelle said. "No way. That's got to be the dumbest name I've ever heard."

Alex tossed his batons and caught them as the Sin forces marshaled themselves for another attack. "You're just jealous."

Isabelle split her quarterstaff in two. "Not even! Anyway, mine are still bigger."

"My ex used to say it's not the size that matters, it's how you use it."

"Keep telling yourself that, birdbrain."

"Kill them!" Greed roared. "Fifty thousand to whoever brings me their heads!"

Alex and Isabelle sprang into action as the Sin forces raced in. "These bastards just don't know when to quit," Isabelle grumbled. "Knock down one, and ten more come back!"

A cutter swung out with a metal bat, only to be stopped by a solid wooden cane. "Looks like you might need an army of your own then," the Phantom said as he disarmed the cutter and drew his hidden blade. He had discarded his tuxedo jacket, and with a deft flick of his fingers, he removed his cufflinks and rolled up the right sleeve of his dress shirt before tossing his sword to his left hand to repeat the motion. Using his left hand, he fenced a Scyther to a standstill, bypassed its guard and used the base of his sword to knock in on the head and stun it long enough for a Mismagius to materialize behind him and zap it with a psychokinetic pulse.

Gregor appeared behind the masked hero, accompanied by an atonal hum. The Dusknoir's chest contorted and then bulged, and the spectral mouth on his abdomen split open as a Golurk burst out from inside on a plume of fire, launching itself at Greed's Ursaring and grappling with the normal type. Once it had stopped the Ursaring's charge, it extricated its right fist from the Ursaring's claw and slammed a rocket-powered punch into the beast's chest, lifting it off its feet and launching it into the air.

"Not bad," Isabelle said. "But don't think you can just show up and be all heroic when you couldn't even handle the mooks from before!"

The Phantom locked blades with a Bisharp, and after a quick exchange of blows and parries, he threw off the steel type's balance long enough to allow Gregor to appear knock it out with a swift punch. "The CCPD sergeant was killed by a Nidoking, and his unit was in disarray. I had to intervene and bring things under control. Speaking of which…" He flicked his sword out in a fencer's salute. "Here they come!"

A squadron of CCPD officers in full riot gear charged out from behind the Sin ranks, driving a wedge in the cutters and disrupting the attack. They fell upon the Sin forces that were menacing Alex and Isabelle and drove them back with batons and metal shields, corralling pokemon and subduing trainers. A woman with a Staravia perched on her shoulder snapped off a salute, and the Golurk that had dispatched Greed's Ursaring mimicked the motion. "Phantom! We've started to rout the Sin forces, and the remaining Steelix is contained for now. But before, when the first one went down, was it really—"

"Hold that thought, lieutenant," the Phantom said. "You might want to cover your ears. Our heavy artillery has just arrived to help mop things up."

A piercing whistle overhead heralded Forte's arrival, and the Exploud crashed down with a roar that rattled Isabelle's bones. Greed leveled her gun, but Forte's right hand shot out and wrenched it from her grasp before blasting her with a sonic onslaught that made Petrovna's eyes roll back in her head and her ears begin to bleed. Forte tossed the firearm contemptuously over his shoulder and sucked in a deep breath.

The Phantom glanced over his shoulder. "Gregor, if you would." The Dusknoir inclined his head, and the humming that accompanied the ghost type grew in volume and intensity. Isabelle's skin crawled when she heard the brown note, but knew that it was preferable to having her eardrums blown out by Forte.

The Exploud released his Boomburst, splintering the pavement around him and creating a small impact crater with the force of the air he expelled from his pipes. The riot squad cheered as the Sin cutters dropped to their knees, but the sound was oddly distorted by Gregor's influence. When Forte ran out of steam, the Phantom turned to the unit. "I trust you can wrap things up here. Hawlucha Man, Volcarona Mask, it's time we put a stop to that Steelix."

A fiery explosion lit up the sky some ways distant. Isabelle and the Phantom whirled, but Alex merely shook his head. "I can't believe he's still showing off." He tapped his ear, and Isabelle saw a small earpiece light up underneath his cowl. "Hey, quit goofing around! We've still got work to do!"

The voice coming through the earpiece was too faint for Isabelle to hear, but she saw Alex grin. "Yeah, get on it." He turned to the Phantom. "Don't worry about the Steelix. It's under control."

"Was that our armored friend?" Isabelle asked.

"Oh yeah. Just watch, this is going to be _awesome_." He whooped and raised his fist. "Let's go, Blaziken Man! Show 'em how it's done!"

Blaziken Man and Masakado shot into the sky on columns of fire, and as they bounded across the plaza with a series of impossibly long leaps, Aethon and Crescita soared to join them. The Steelix turned its massive head towards them, only to be stunned by a sonic blast from Echo's Noivern. Aethon shot higher into the air, spiraling up above the Steelix and unleashing a blast of scorching air from above. Masakado and Jiro alighted atop the roof of a nearby building to prepare for one final leap that carried them high into the air. At the apex of their jump, the pair of them spun in the air and shot fire from their feet to descend at incredible speed. Flames cloaked their fists, and the smashed into the Steelix with twin explosions that echoed across all of downtown.

The Steelix groaned as it listed to the side, and when the smoke around its head cleared, Isabelle saw the armored plating had two deep impact craters. The armored figure and his Blaziken leapt off the collapsing behemoth, jumping off the sides of buildings to deliver more fiery strikes to direct the beast's fall, ensuring that it collapsed in the middle of the street and didn't bring any more infrastructure down with it.

When the Steelix finally fell to the concrete, the CCPD cheered. The Phantom tapped a communicator in his ear. "Hey Echo, let's wrap this up." From across the plaza, Isabelle heard Mezzo bellow, and the pavement beneath her feet rumbled. Forte threw back his head and roared, and his fists sparked with electrical power. The Phantom turned to his unit of police officers and nodded briskly. "You've had my back so far. You ready for one last push?"

"Yes sir!" the lieutenant barked.

"Count us in too," Alex said.

"Good to have you back, birdbrain," the Phantom replied. "What about you, hotshot?"

Isabelle cracked her knuckles. "Volcarona Mask doesn't do anything halfway. Let's end this."

"Damn heroes," Greed hissed as she struggled to her feet. "Retreat is nothing. We'll live to fight another day." She raised her hands to the sky, and Sal's Skarmory swooped down from where it had perched above the plaza, seizing her hands in its talons and hoisting the Sin commander into the air.

"You slippery bitch." Isabelle whistled for Aethon, but she had no idea if the Volcarona could hear her. She started to give pursuit, but froze in her tracks as a scream cut across the plaza, magnified by microphones rigged into a bodysuit.

"Ingrid!" the Phantom cried. Forte whirled and began to charge forward, the heroes hot on his heels.

"Stay still," a new voice said, amplified by Echo's suit. "If all of you remain calm, nothing will happen to the girl. Echo, please tell your Loudred to stand down." The voice was coolly polite and devoid of any accent or inflection, and vaguely familiar to Isabelle. There was a grunt, the sound of a scuffle, and a crackle of feedback on the speakers.

"Don't listen!" Echo shouted. "All he has is a knife! I can handle myself just—"

"Don't be foolish." Echo gasped in pain, and there was a thud of impact on flesh.

"We won't make it in time to help," Alex said. "But Jiro can." He tapped his earpiece. "You have to help her! Time to overclock it!" He paused. "It doesn't matter! Now's as good a test as any! We can't lose anyone else!"

Across the plaza, near the fallen Steelix, a gout of flame shot into the sky, and all of Isabelle's hair stood on end as Blaziken Man shot out over the plaza at impossible speeds, rattling any windows that hadn't already been shattered by Echo's sonic attack. Electricity crackled around the powered suit, and fiery contrails issued forth from the soles of the armor's feet, along with the palms of its hands and vents protruding from the armor's back.

"Forte, boost me!" Alex shouted, and the Exploud cupped his hands together just in time for Alex to jump into the Exploud's palms. The normal type launched the winged hero skyward, and the fabric of his wingsuit gleamed crimson in the fading afternoon light as he plunged towards the steps of city hall.

"Let's go," the Phantom said as he seized Isabelle's arm. "The shadows are all wrong, but Gregor can at least get us close." Isabelle's stomach lurched as the Phantom's Dusknoir loomed up in front of them and crammed the pair of them into the mouth on his chest.

After a blast of blistering hot sulfurous wind and an instant in crushing darkness, they emerged a short distance from the steps where Echo had stood. Blaziken Man crashed down on the steps, his armor venting fire and heated wind.

As soon as Isabelle found her balance, she and the Phantom were sprinting across the ravaged cobblestones as quickly as the destroyed terrain would allow. Blaziken Man ripped off his helmet and flung it to the side. "Look at me!" Jiro Sasaki roared. "I am Blaziken Man! I am Clarus City's greatest defender!" Echo's captor threw her aside and swiped at Jiro, only for his knife to shatter against his armor. Jiro drove a metal fist into the man's abdomen hard enough to lift him off his feet. "I won't let you take another hero down!"

The repulsor on his hand hummed as he charged up a shot, and lightning crackled along his armor, throwing his face into sharp relief. "Stop!" Echo screamed. "You c-can't hurt him, he's the m-m-mayor!" The supersonic hero threw herself between Jiro and her assailant. "He's being c-controlled! If you hurt him, you're p-playing right into Dominion's hands!"

In Jiro's split second of hesitation, Mayor Lynden recovered and charged again, only to be struck by Hawlucha Man descending from the sky. "Sorry Mr. Mayor," Alex quipped as he shoved Lynden into one of the marble columns that lined city hall's entry and pinned him there. "But I voted for the other guy, so I don't feel too guilty."

Isabelle and the Phantom managed to scramble up to where Jiro stood. The fire had ceased issuing from his armor, and all that remained of the electricity that had shrouded him was the reek of ozone. Jiro's face looked pale and drawn, and his armor seemed to be short-circuiting, but he was otherwise unharmed. Echo was breathing heavily, and had a hand pressed to a cut on her shoulder.

The Phantom swept past Jiro and went to the sonic heroine's side. "He hurt you?"

Echo moved her hand away. "It l-looks w-worse than it is. I'll b-be okay."

The Phantom's face darkened, and he shoved Alex away from Lynden before clocking the mayor across the face. "Harcourt Industries will _never_ contribute to your campaign again," he spat. The mayor collapsed to the ground just as the lieutenant with the Golurk arrived with her unit.

"The mayor was apparently being controlled by Dominion," Alex told the lieutenant. "He should be restrained until we can make sure he's free from her influence."

"It d-doesn't m-make sense," Echo said. "Why attack city ha-hall if the m-mayor is already her s-sleeper agent?"

"If I had to guess," Isabelle replied, "the bitch was flexing. She just wanted to prove she could take out the biggest, best protected, and high profile target in Clarus City if she felt like it." She grinned at her comrades in arms. "But that's never gonna happen, not while the heroes of Clarus City are around. Especially now that we've got Blaziken Man back." She almost slapped Jiro's back, but the armor was still glowing red-hot as it vented heat.

"I'm sorry I left all of this for you to deal with," Jiro said. His armor hissed and vented steam. "It won't happen again. I'm back, and I'm not backing down. Dominion can't be allowed to go any further with this." He looked to each of the young heroes in turn. "And I'm going to be relying on all of you to help me. Together, we can put a stop to her, and all the Sins."

"You kn-now it," Echo replied.

"We'll make them pay," the Phantom added.

Hawlucha Man nodded. "Together, there's no way we'll lose!"

"Winning's what we do best," Volcarona Mask said with a grin.

"Clarus City doesn't have a league," Jiro said with a smile, "but so long as you're holding the line, it's got an amazing Elite Four."


End file.
